Earlier today, I spent way too much time hunting-and-pecking my way through an item regarding the problems with the two pressure gauges used to measure the Patriots footballs at halftime of the AFC title game. I spent so much time focused on the nuances that I didn’t give proper attention to perhaps the most obvious problem of all.

To summarize, the NFL had two air pressure gauges available at the game. One had a Wilson logo on the back and a long, crooked needle. The other did not have a Wilson logo, and a shorter, straighter needle.

The gauge with the logo and the longer needle generated higher measurements of the Patriots footballs at halftime, ranging from 0.3 PSI to 0.45 PSI higher for each of the 11 footballs. If that gauge — the one with the logo and the longer, crooked needle — were used to set the PSI for the balls before the game began, the measurements from that gauge are the right measurements to rely upon at halftime. And those measurements show that there was no tampering, because most of the footballs fell within the 11.52 to 11.32 PSI range for halftime, as predicted by the Ideal Gas Law.

Referee Walt Anderson didn’t clearly recall which gauge he used to set the pressure in the Patriots balls at 12.5 PSI before the game. Page 52 of the Wells report reveals that it was Anderson’s “best recollection” that he used before the game the gauge with the logo and the longer, crooked needle. In other words, Anderson recalls using the gauge before the game that, based on the halftime measurements, leads to a finding of no tampering.

So how did Ted Wells get around the “best recollection” of Walt Anderson? Wells persuaded Anderson to admit that it’s “certainly possible” he used the other gauge. And the company hired to provide technical support for the Wells report concluded based on a convoluted explanation appearing at pages 116-17 of the report that it is “more probable than not” that Anderson used the other gauge.

In other words, the Wells report concludes on this critical point that it’s “more probable than not” that Anderson’s “best recollection” was wrong.

Why should Anderson’s “best recollection” be doubted? He knew that there was a concern about tampering with the footballs. He presumably was paying more careful attention to the process of getting the balls filled with air before the AFC title game than he normally does.

So which gauge did you use, Walt, realizing that there could be a question later about the inflation of the footballs?

“Well, my best recollection is that I used the one with the long, crooked needle.”

Is it possible, Walt, that you used the other gauge that was available? You know, the one that for whatever reason measures the air pressure at 0.3 to 0.45 PSI lower?

“Well, I don’t know about that. . . .”

Isn’t it possible, Walt?

“Well, it’s certainly possible.”

That’s how investigations that start with a predetermined outcome and work backward unfold. (Holy crap, I think I’m beginning to agree with Don Yee.) And that’s why Wells should have concluded based on the scientific evidence that the question of whether tampering occurred in connection with the AFC title game is inconclusive.

Regardless of whether certain executives in the league office wanted the Patriots to be found guilty of cheating or whether Wells personally believed based on the non-scientific evidence that cheating must have happened, something prevented Wells from making a truly objective assessment of the scientific evidence. And a truly objective assessment of the scientific evidence should have led to this conclusion: It’s unclear whether tampering occurred.

This doesn’t mean the Patriots should be exonerated. The texts between Larry and Curly and the potential involvement of Tom Brady a/k/a Moe Howard requires further examination regarding whether there was a pattern of deliberate efforts to get the footballs below 12.5 PSI at kickoff on a regular basis. And Tom Brady should be presumed guilty at best and suspended indefinitely until he gives up his text messages and emails at worst for his failure to cooperate with the investigation.

But as it relates to the AFC title game, the scientific evidence was resolved not simply by a coin flip, but by a coin flip that Walt Anderson recalls as landing heads, and that someone else decided was actually tails. If discipline is going to be imposed on the Patriots or any individuals, it needs to be based on something other than whatever did or didn’t happen before the AFC title game.

Anderson’s best recollection is that he used the gauge which showed results in the expected halftime PSI measurements to suggest no ball tampering.
But because MAYBE he his recollection is wrong, let’s highlight the results as if it’s more likely than not that Coleman’s recollection was WRONG, thus providing more evidence of POSSIBLE ball tampering of a rather small degree even if that is so.

Billion dollar corporation relying on a 99 cent gauge, of which is not calibrated so we don’t even know how accurate it is. We do know that between the 2 gauges used, one or both are off enough to invalidate the results.

This is the same Walt Anderson whose allotment of tickets to the Bengals at Browns game ended up in the hands of a scalper. I would know because I ended up with one of his tickets. Anything he says is called into question.

And “maybe” Tom’s story that he didn’t know those two guys wasn’t correct either. The lying, both publicly and privately, and lack of cooperation with an investigation (itself a violation of the Personal Conduct Policy, per you) are the more serious part of the crime anyway.

As a die hard Hawks fan, since 1976, I was 7 so that’s how big a fan I am of the Seahawks. I of course will never get over SB49 just like I can’t get over SB40. Having said that I think deflategate is a joke and totally ridiculous. If the NFL thinks psi in footballs is so serious then they should suspend Goodell for not having the footballs in the hands of the refs NOT the teams hands if it’s such a big deal. I watched SB49 and Tom looked like Tom and we know the footballs had the correct psi in them in that game. What a joke it really is. Goodell should have been canned along time ago. He can’t suspend guys for beating thier wives and girlfriends but he’s going to suspend Tom Brady for this, of which there is no evidence the pressure was intended to be bellow 12.5 that I read? It first I was kinda thinking they had some smoking gun but I don’t see it. I don’t see how Goodell can even fine Tom much less suspend the guy. More probably than not means what? More probably than not the Seahawks would have won the SB if Lynch ran it. (? well ya in that case it makes sense)

Florio also sees that the “investigation” was steered by Wells to get a desired pre-determined result. The Wells investigators basically steered Anderson in a particular direction, achieving a conclusion that they wanted.

Where in the report is the NFL employee caught taking game balls in and out of play?

The report was paid for by the league, and the “investigators” clearly set out to find evidence of wrong doing instead of simply investigating if anything happened.

The same is actually true with those text messages, which the report automatically assumes are nefarious…. even when the men behind them said otherwise. If its possible however that the Patriot’s balls actually weren’t deflated, then it must also be possible that those text messages are less meaningful than some seem to think.

At the end of the day, I really don’t see how the league can suspend a guy like Brady when there is pretty much no proof at all that the balls were even tampered with. Sure, they can hold up their paid for report as evidence…. but it would never get past appeal.

Plus that might be a legitimate “reasonable doubt” argument but it doesn’t change the “preponderance of evidence”. Any regular civilian would be convicted of whatever charge the state sought in this case, so it seems to meet the reasonable double hurdle practically if not intellectually, too.

The report is hearsay obviously based on selective evidence, much of which may have been taken out of context. The degree to which the report ignored facts (the intercepted ball, any texts from Brady to those claimed to be responsible would have been on their phones, etc.) and, as detailed above, twisted testimony makes it impeachable if not downright evidence of malice.

I think it is “more likely than not” that if the NFL relies on the Wells report, they will lose not only in court, but in the court of public opinion.

If the NFL suspends Brady and taints the 2015 season, I think it is “more likely than not” that the commercial partners and owners will insist on a new commissioner.

Tom’s cell phone tells the whole story. That’s why he’s obstructing the process. Cooperation is something Tom should do but he knows that proves his guilt even more. Head coach started a cheating culture and now their star player has done it too.

insightfulcomments says:
May 10, 2015 1:30 PM
And “maybe” Tom’s story that he didn’t know those two guys wasn’t correct either. The lying, both publicly and privately, and lack of cooperation with an investigation (itself a violation of the Personal Conduct Policy, per you) are the more serious part of the crime anyway.
=========

LOL- now that you’ve come to the disappointing conclusion that there is no way the cheating charge will hold up, you’re now going to act like that wasn’t the important part anyway.

Brady interviewed all day. The only thing he didn’t do was hand over his phone. Period. Maybe he has dirty text messages with his wife or, hell, maybe even a mistress on it. Maybe he was worried about private family stuff more than stupid air pressure. Everyone assumes he was hiding text messages about deflated footballs when it’s “more probable than not” he was trying to protect private stuff that was non-football related on his phone. Can’t blame the guy. No way in hell is anyone getting my phone without a warrant.

If the objective of the Wells report was to show tampering regardless of it existed or not wouldn’t they need Anderson to say that he used the same pressure gauge and it produced a lower pressure at halftime, rather than getting him to say it is “certainly possible” that he used another guage that was known to read at a lower pressure than the first guage?

Two gauges, both un-calibrated, from two different manufacturers, yielding two divergent results, and no record of which gauge was used to set the balls to 12.5 PSI to begin with. Add that 3 out of 4 Colts footballs were underinflated, and it seems luminously clear the NFL has no grounds to suspend Brady. However, not turning over his cell phone might be grounds to do something to him. Farve did not turn over his phone when he got into trouble with that female reporter, but he was not suspended over that. The NFL better not suspend him, for it would be a gross miscarriage of justice.

Not to mention the fact that the gauge that routinely measured the .35 to .4 lower PSI reading , mysteriously measured a higher reading on one of the Colts 4 balls that were tested. You know, the only 4 balls that were tested because they ran out of time . Even though, 12 balls can easily be deflated in under a 100 seconds by someone who is practiced in the art of poking a needle in a ball.

Aaron Rodgers exact quote from a Milwaukee Radio Station interview in regards to his preference of over inflating footballs above the league minimum.

“The majority of people don’t like throwing brand-new footballs, and that’s why the change was made and Peyton was big on helping all the quarterbacks out with that,” Rodgers said. “But if they’re going to let us prep them the way we want them, I don’t believe they should be able to take air out of the footballs.”

What does it show that QBs are going to be quiet on this topic when asked about Brady and unfortunately understand that Brady and NE once again will take the fall for all other QBs and Teams because a team blows the whistle on one team who wins all the time and not on the teams that don’t.

Yes Brady was lobbying with Peyton for the above reason mentioned by Rodgers but that was because all QBs felt the same way Manning and Brady felt. Rodgers is flat out saying it “But if they’re going to let us prep them the way we want them, I don’t believe they should be able to take air out of the footballs.” In his case he’s telling the NFL and refs don’t touch my balls after my team (equipment managers) has prepped them.

Tell me the difference….someone tell me the difference and there is a reason Manning and other QBs don’t want comment because they have been doing exactly what Rodgers stated and that is no different than Brady.

For those of you who don’t understand what Rodgers was saying lets put it this way. Let’s say Brady is MAGNUM , Manning is BLUE STEEL, Rodgers is FERRARI, and Brees is LE TIGRE. In the words of Mugato….ITS THE SAME LOOK! I FEEL LIKE IM TAKING CRAZY PILLS!…lol

I know that Kraft has said he won’t sue, but he would SOOOO win based on the league’s own evidence, even though they’ve done their best to hide the most important facts deep in the report.

Fact is that false reports were leaked from the league office and they allowed these false report to damage one of their franchises. They continue to ignore their own missteps along the way as they hammer away at one of their franchises.

Granted, if McNally or Yaz comes out with a bombshell, then it’s over for Brady.
Absent that, the league has absolutely nothing on them. Brady asked that footballs be at 12.5 PSI. He was furious after the Jets game where footballs were well over 13.5 PSI. What PSI are footballs out of the box? Does the “deflator” take them down to 12.5? Or lower?
The report doesn’t come close to answering that.
But they do show a willingness to spin the facts or (in the case of Coleman’s best recollection) change the facts altogether.

In sum, the data did not provide a basis for us to determine with absolute certainty whether
there was or was not tampering as the analysis of such data ultimately is dependent upon
assumptions and information that is not certain.
————————————-

This is a pathetic attempt at a witch hunt intended to make the commissioner look competent after the Ray Rice fiasco.

Florio, ask your nfl sources what happened when the league reached out to Columbia University for an opinion on the impact weather has on psi. It’s more probable than not the response they received didn’t align with the league’s preconceptions, so Wells got the answer he wanted from the same firm that the the tobacco industry hired to prove that second hand smoke doesn’t cause cancer.

Hey Florio, ask Walt Anderson why he did not have the game balls rechecked BEFORE the game started after he had lost control of them for “the 1st time in 19 years”? Seems like a little collusion was intended for the game balls to be “out of spec” during the game.

This and the prior story still do not take into account the difference in the Colts balls and the Pats balls, measured with the same device. Any reasonable person reviewing the info will conclude that Brady cheated. Simple as that!

And if this entity would twist the evidence about the scientific aspects of the conclusion, what would prevent him from leaving out pertinent evidence showing that the texts were perhaps benign, his integrity?

When you discover that the farmer in the hen-house is actually a fox, why would you keep acting as if he’s the farmer? And why would you punish the hens because they didn’t want to help the fox in his suspect endeavors?

Everyone is focus on the report. What I find interesting is that Brady is still not willing to prove his innocents by simply showing his text messages. The guy is facing a suspension, have himself be remembered as a cheater and risk having his team be punished as well. Anybody who has nothing to hide, who is in that position would cooperate to prove his and his teams innocents.

Any Seahawks fan still whining about the calls in Super Bowl 40, should watch the game again and learn how those exact calls are made every week in the NFL. Only botched penalty was on the Hasselback pick, and that didn’t affect the interception.

Brady just hasn’t been vociferous enough in his defense, and this also opens up the possibility he has more knowledge about SpyGate than originally thought. Like this matter, it’s more probable than not that a team which recorded preseason and regular season games would continue that practice in the postseason.

Let me say this up front I’m disappointed that Brady isn’t forthcoming about his cellphone. Though he doesn’t need to, the way texting works is you have both the messages sent and received on those ball handler’s phones. And given that NFL leaks jeez…

Now, has anyone considered that brady owns stock in few companies and I think is also an independent director in some. Now post 2008 Lehman fiasco & meltdown SEC has been very strict in the role of independent directors and comes down hard on cases of cheating and stuff.

Also Brady the player can’t do anything but Brady the brand/company can claim in my limted legal assesment up to 150 million $ in damages from NFL and the patriots.

I think NFL’s legal team is studying this very closely.

All said and done, I think Goodell’s done. Pats’ haters and fans can agree to that one.

If the Wells report blows up on the NFL they are in for a world of hurt. They still have egg on their faces from the bounty-gate debacle, the Ray Rice/Adrian Peterson/Greg Hardy situations, and now this?

Haha, could the NFL be any more incompetent?

How is Roger Goodell still the commissioner of the NFL? It’s absolutely amazing.

your comments, while insightful, ignore the fact that in a civil case the “other side” is able to form their own investigation and also cross-examine the facts as they are presented. that’s not allowed here. you’re stuck with the “evidence” listed in a report paid for by the prosecutor, in this case.

What I’m starting to suspect happened(maybe because I want to believe it), is that Brady wanted to make sure the FBs were at the 12.5 minimum. He got the rule printed out, to make sure it’s legal. I doubt he instructed the ballboys to under inflate, just make sure they’re 12.5. After the Jets gm, where a few were inflated by the refs to 16 psi, Brady said enough. I’m entitled to FBs@12.5 psi. Is it a rules violation to make sure of that after the refs inspect it, yes. Is it cheating to make sure the balls were 12.5 during the gm, no. That’s why he texted Jaz he did nothing wrong. Basically broke a rule to right a wrong. Can’t see Brady purposely trying to cheat. Of course, I have no proof, but neither does the league.

What a clown show Goodell and Wells are. Like that looks like a trustworthy guy in all the pics of Wells Florio posts on Wells related articles. He looks like a drug smuggler from Colombia.

This proves this “investigation” was a sham from the get go and so is the psi rule of inflating footballs. If we all would have seen a major dropoff on Bradys performance in 2nd Half v Indy and the Super Bowl, i would say it would have mattered. But obviously at allegedly properly inflated footballs, Bradys performance was his usual Tom Brady. Guy does more with less than any QB in NFL history. Kraft should get his apology now.

The text messages paint the picture of guilt, I like how people including Florio disregards that evidence and instead looks at a faulty gauge that may not be faulty since the colts also checked the balls PSI after the interceptions. I’m about over it at this point, golden boy will skate free….

Ok, I get it. The ball boy asks the refs if he can move the balls in the locker room but he doesn’t ask the ref if he can take them on the field. So he takes the balls without approval and stops in the bathroom long enough to deflate them. He doesn’t mention this until he’s caught on video and then states he took a leak in the urinal. Except there is no urinal in that bathroom. Guilty as charged. Suspend Brady. He’s a liar and a cheater.

“I like to push the limit to how much air we can put in the football, even go over what they allow you to do and see if the officials take air out of it.”

Nothing is done. No one cares. But Brady and the Pats? The NFL wants to hang em high. Rodgers should be suspended as long as Brady is.

Joke.

——————————————————–

Wow, you missed the mark on this by so far it isn’t even funny.

Let me try to explain it to you in simple words that you can understand, not that will listen anyway.

Rodgers said they like to push the limits of how much pressure they can put in the balls and see if the refs decide to take some out. As in prior to the referees pregame inspection of the balls, as opposed to the Patriots situation which deals with altering the balls post referee inspection.

Its the same as usuig a text book to study up to the moment a test is handed out versus having a cheat sheet you are trying to use during the test without the teacher knowing.

Well now my real question becomes this. Knowing that the Patriots are now notorious for cheating. Have no issues with pushing the envelope in every way possible. The league caught them and then destroyed the evidence before opening it up to the public. Have now caught them cheating again. Why is now every sports caster and analyst now desperately either trying to say it wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things or trying to defend Brady and belichick now? These guys are cheaters. We know they cheated and didn’t care. They cheated their way to 3 previous sure bowl victories. We now can understand how they Ave been left to consistently maintain 10 +wins for almost 14 years. Think about that. The natural attrition that cones from up and down in talent, injuries, player defections and coaches defecting. They never slipped. It’s clear their while franchise is corrupt. Are we really to believe belichick never knew? That kraft didn’t know? I have lost so much respect for brady. The underdog. I dislike the Patriots sure. I’m a steelers fan. But I always lived brady. And he is the only qb I would have taken over big Ben for my steelers. Now everyone of these analysts are saying it’s no big deal. Well it is and here’s why. Lowest fumbles and turnovers in that time frame. Smaller easier to grip ball gives you more control. It was no longer a level playing field. It has a tremendous effect in cold or adverse weather. And lastly, it’s about intent. So what they blew the Colts out. How they got there is what matters. Their intent was to not take any chances playing fairly on a level playing field. Win if you can. Lose if you must. But always cheat. Belicheat. Banned from the league. Period. How do you not control your house? For the second time. It was his responsibility to know everything. So he’s gone. Genius or not. Gone. Brady. A years suspension. Period. Enough said on him. Organization. 3 first round draft picks. 3 Second round draft picks. Fined 5 million dollars. These are repeat offenders guys. The 2 trainers. They will be fired. They were just following orders but in life every decision has consequences. That kind of penalty should dissuade anyone else from trying the again. After what the league did to the saints over giving an incentive to defensive players to do what they want and are paid to do anyway. And that wasn’t cheating. Poor sportsmanship yes. But that was it. They banned Mike Vick for dogs. That’s right people dogs. We as people eat animals. Just because we here find that disgusting isn’t the point. So if what he did had nothing to do with football got him suspended. Brady should be gone at least a year. The only reason most won’t see it is the same reason that those idiot jurors in Florida that refused to convict Casey Anderson or whatever that baby murdering garbage name is. They let her off because they looked at her and saw themselves. Saw their daughter . Saw themselves in this criminal. Those that defend brady have an agenda.

If and when Brady takes this ass clown Goodell to court I can’t WAIT until EVERYONE’s text messages and emails are forced to be shown. Then we can see what Goodell, Wells and this whole crooked investigation was really about.

Look, there’s a freakin video of a guy that calls himself “the deflator” disappearing into a bathroom with the footballs after they’d been checked, for 100 seconds. He claims he had to use the bathroom, but there’s no stall or urinal in that room at all.

Then there’s the fact that every ball that the Colts produced managed to not drop in pressure below the legal threshold.

This is as open and shut as it gets, and no amount of Florio-plays-defense-attorney is going to change it.

Remember this, there was a cover-up anyway. That in itself is damning. Goodell and the league office is going to mess this up. There is another way to look at this as well. If Brady is guilty then there is something he should be punished for. If the Wells report is so full of wholes or is too vague, that is a problem and Brady may or may not be guilty. Should he be suspended? Will Goodell use this as an out as far as a suspension is concerned. Did the NFL have a pre-concieved agenda here? OR is the report being purposely compromised right now, before the suspension is announced? You can drive yourself crazy here.

But at the end of the day, since there was in my opinion, a cover-up, that is what hangs Brady. If you are innocent, there is nothing to cover-up.

Another thing that is ridiculously fishy is the way the figures for pressure increase during half time are inconsistent in the Exponent report. Figure 22 based on an actual experiment shows that if you measure at 2 minutes after returning to the locker room, you get a result about .7 psi below what you get if you measure 9 minutes after returning to the locker room at half time. É.g. The entire discrepancy between the Patrits’ and Colts’ measurements is explained.

But then Exponent uses some other plots in figures 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28. These only show a .3 psi for measuring earlier! But they are not based on any experiment that is described, just an unspecified model. It’s like a sleight of hand. The figures are inconsistent, and it looks like the ones condemning the Patriots are simply made up with mo justification

Goodell will look for any out possible not to punish Brady. Co-commissioner Kraft has already let it known how he feels. In other words Roger, you screw with us and you’ll be looking for another job that pays you 44 million per. That’s what you get when the guy who doles out the punishment is employed by the dolees.

if you throw out the science part of the flawed wells report like every reasonable person should , you’ll have to throw out the rest of the evidence as well , the text are being interpreted based on the (flawed) science telling you there was missing air in the patriots balls . all that is left is the equipement guy going to the bathroom . not enough for a fine let alone a suspension !

So Brady might be punished for failing to hand over text messages that the investigator already had from other phones, during an investigation that ought to never have happened and with evidence ignored or manipulated so as to mesh with a predetermined finding of “probable” guilt. I hate cheaters as much as anyone but there is no way Goodell can legitimately punish the Patriots or Brady here.

Amazing break down by Florio. I think you’ve probably authored, this and the gauge post from earlier, the best defense possible against the NFL and the Wells Report. Thank you for reading it, unlike I’m guessing 90% of the national media.

The NFL is in shambles. The owners need to sack Goodell. Sadly, they only care now because he is bad for business. The fans already know so much more, that he is bad for the sport and has done indelible harm to the National Football League.

Thank you Florio! This has been a complete hatchet job from the start and this report was written to dress up the complete lack of anything solid.

Appendix A, where the truth usually goes to be buried so that the paying customer has a report that he can use, is full of the word “assumed.” The report is pure assumption when it comes to the brass tacks numbers,even Chart A-1 (first chart in appendix A) has a column titled “Assumed Pressure at Start of Game.”

Let’s “assume” for a moment that the officials screwed-up pregame. What then? They clearly couldn’t keep a simple eye on the footballs so why should we accept “best recollection” as a certainty?

The repeated cheating by the Patriot team has to stop. Complete disrespect to the league brand. Makes it look like WW whatever wrestling. Cheap of Tom Brady to do that. Now to hide evidence contained in the cell phone just shows his guilt and what a fake he really is.

The Patriots’ footballs decreased .72 -.75 (or .66 – .68) psi more than the Colts’ footballs. The decreased air pressure for both teams should be approximately the same regardless of which instrument was used…

After Tom receives his mega-million dollar settlement from the NFL following his record-setting defamation of character lawsuit, he’ll probably renegotiate his contract with the Pats to play the rest of his career for pennies on the dollars, thus increasing the Pats’ cap space to an ineviable level.

bsizemore68 says:
May 10, 2015 1:26 PM
Look like the fix is in, Roger has an out, got to love how the pats keep getting a pass. Thumbs up if you think Roger needs to go. Bill
_____________

Not a pass at all. As a Pats fan, even with this information, I realize things still don’t exactly look squeaky clean as far as Tom, Larry and Curly go but what this information DOES do is shed some more light onto an investigation that looks anything but independent.

With everything about the report seeming to go against the Patriots, I’m hoping for more and more information to come out.

Maybe the league can conduct an investigation into this investigation?
They could work with Comcast to create the Deflategate Network and make millions!

If suspending Brady gets the NFL owners to wake up and realize what an incompetent fool they’ve hired to run their league, then maybe this is the best outcome football fans could hope for. I mean, would the NBA suspend Lebron because they believed it was “more probable than not” that he was “at least generally aware” that his equipment managers took a little bit of air out of the basketball so he could palm it more easily? WHAT A JOKE!

Think about the number of completely avoidable scandals under Goodell’s watch: Spygate, Concussion testing, Bountygate, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Deflategate…and this is in less than a decade under his “leadership.” Any sane commissioner presented with the information of a possible minor rule violation would have simply said, we’re looking into this to determine why some footballs didn’t have the required air pressure but aren’t concerned as air pressure in footballs is not considered an important or consequential part of the game of football. He/she would have put together a report on whether air pressure should be regulated and if so, created a new policy for better monitoring it. No scandal, no media leaks, no destroying the brand of a marquee team/player that helps drive revenue for the NFL.

While we at it let’s go back and examine all the testing procedures for players who have been suspended for substance abuse. How do we know the lab didn’t make mistake? Can they account for every single one of their steps from collecting the players sample at some location to testing it in the lab? Folks, this is not a criminal case where proof beyond a reasonable doubt is necessary for conviction. They just have to prove it is more likely than not some football tampering took place, and sadly as a Patriots fan I agree with the NFL.

Brady could be talking about deflation issues in his texts alongside with political hopes and “what to do”. He could have them propositioning women. There could be cheating on his taxes. No matter what I don’t believe for even a second that it takes more than one side of a cell phone conversation to print an entire conversation.

He could have been texting with OTHER QUARTERBACKS and have incriminating messages on their activity.

The NFL was a sieve, why would anyone famous give them their most personal possession in the world?

The Patriots’ footballs decreased .72 -.75 (or .66 – .68) psi more than the Colts’ footballs. The decreased air pressure for both teams should be approximately the same regardless of which instrument was used…

Read pages 168-172.

The conclusion on page 172 states regardless of the assumption of which of the gauges where used to obtain the initial game data, there is a statistically significant difference in the decrease of air pressure between the two teams.

Read the conclusion on page 172.

*** the article written is irrelevant after reading the data provided in pages 168-172. ***

The Wells Report states that to the best of the pivotal Official’s recollection, tampering DID NOT OCCUR!

So of course Wells assumes THE OPPOSITE and thus states it’s probable tampering DID occur

Meanwhile Brady denies he cheats and Aaron Rogers admits it – so of course Brady will be suspended and Rogers won’t

To cap it off the report provides evidence that the OFFICIALS THEMSELVES overinflate balls up to 16psi in violation of their own rules (but God forbid equipment managers try to stop the officials from cheating and bring the PSI back to legal levels

Does that about cover things?

Roger Goodell is the reason there is a crisis in the integrity of the game.

“And Tom Brady should be presumed guilty at best and suspended indefinitely until he gives up his text messages and emails at worst for his failure to cooperate with the investigation.”

Florio, you are out of your tree.

That is unconstitutional. An employer cannot fire an employee, or ban them, until they turn over their cellphone.

It doesn’t work that way. The NFL has no subpoena rights, and allowing them to either suspend a player in perpetuity or fine them to a level where they must leave, essentially grants them the ability to seize the phone via force. That renders that right to privacy hollow.

And before you mention drug tests, those have been bargained away by the NFLPA. That is why they it isn’t unconstitutional. It’s part of the CBA that players will submit to announced urine sampling for illegal/or controlled substances.

It’s not going to happen. The NFL won’t get his phone, and the NFL won’t be able to suspend him for it.

Evidence: Hargrove and Tagliabue in arbitration. They couldn’t even stick a 7 game suspension on a non-union employee for deleting hard drives.

In what world do you think they have the legal standing to suspend, in perpetuity, a union employee for not turning over his cell?

*** the article’s argument is irrelevant after reading the data provided in pages 168-172. ***

Read pages 168-172.

The conclusion on page 172 states regardless of the assumption of which of the gauges where used to obtain the initial game data, there is a statistically significant difference in the decrease of air pressure between the two teams.

Read the conclusion on page 172.

The Patriots’ footballs decreased .72 -.75 (or .66 – .68) psi more than the Colts’ footballs. The decreased air pressure for both teams should be approximately the same regardless of which instrument was used…

Regardless of which gauge was used, both teams’ footballs should have lost approximately the same amount of air pressure during the first half.

The Patriots’ footballs decreased .72 -.75 (or .66 – .68) psi more than the Colts’ footballs. The decreased air pressure for both teams should be approximately the same regardless of which instrument was used…

Regardless of which gauge was used, both teams’ footballs should have lost approximately the same amount of air pressure during the first half.

The Patriots’ footballs decreased .72 -.75 (or .66 – .68) psi more than the Colts’ footballs. The decreased air pressure for both teams should be approximately the same regardless of which instrument was used…

————————————————————-
your assuming the report is true , they only decrease from walt anderson’s recollection of all patriots balls being exactly 12.5 pre game and the same goes for colts balls being 13.0 . this report is complete trash , and the only way you can see it as anything but trash is if your trying to get brady and the pats because you hate them .

*** the article’s argument is irrelevant after reading the data provided in pages 168-172. ***

Read pages 168-172.

The conclusion on page 172 states regardless of the assumption of which of the gauges where used to obtain the initial game data, there is a statistically significant difference in the decrease of air pressure between the two teams.

The Patriots’ footballs decreased .72 -.75 (or .66 – .68) psi more than the Colts’ footballs. The decreased air pressure for both teams should be approximately the same regardless of which instrument was used…

Regardless of which gauge was used, both teams’ footballs should have lost approximately the same amount of air pressure during the first half.

The conclusion on page 172 states regardless of the assumption of which of the gauges where used to obtain the initial game data, there is a statistically significant difference in the decrease of air pressure between the two teams.

The Patriots’ footballs decreased .72 -.75 (or .66 – .68) psi more than the Colts’ footballs. The decreased air pressure for both teams should be approximately the same regardless of which instrument was used…

Regardless of which gauge was used, both teams’ footballs should have lost approximately the same amount of air pressure during the first half.

** the article’s argument is irrelevant after reading the data provided in pages 168-172. ***

Also, look at the numbers called out by both refs when they measured the PSI’s. One ref, Blakeman, had numbers less than Prioleau in 10 of the 11 footballs of the Patriots. However, in 3 of the 4 Colt’s footballs, Blakeman’s readings were higher than Prioleau’s numbers? How did that happen?

If the NFL is smart, they’ll nail Brady for failure to cooperate. He never gave up his cellphone. He’s required to cooperate with the investigation by NFL rules. He didn’t. So hit him with a suspension for failure to cooperate.

We all know that Tom didn’t spend 55 minutes on the phone with a guy he hadn’t talked to on the phone for six months … during the prep time for the Super Bowl … because Tom was suddenly so concerned with the guy’s welfare.

I agree with the first poster – I am having enough of this story already. You’re trying to find nuance after nuance to make it interesting. There is enough for me in the culture and recent history of this organization at it is, but quite frankly I would suspend/fine based solely on the lack of cooperation in this investigation. Not only is it conduct unbecoming, but it is simple – if there was nothing to hide, don’t hide it.

oh my glorious upset the pats haters something awful lol
and the reasoning that you can be suspended for not handing over personal items is incorrect incorrect.
well he can but that would get rebuked by a neutral arbitrator.

“zbellino says:
May 10, 2015 2:17 PM
“And Tom Brady should be presumed guilty at best and suspended indefinitely until he gives up his text messages and emails at worst for his failure to cooperate with the investigation.”

Florio, you are out of your tree.

That is unconstitutional. An employer cannot fire an employee, or ban them, until they turn over their cellphone.

It doesn’t work that way. The NFL has no subpoena rights, and allowing them to either suspend a player in perpetuity or fine them to a level where they must leave, essentially grants them the ability to seize the phone via force. That renders that right to privacy hollow.”

You’re wrong. Brady has AGREED to cooperate with investigations, as part of the CBA and his NFL contract. He has AGREED that he can be subject to discipline if he fails to cooperate. He didn’t cooperate. He can be disciplined.

And that’s true for any employer, by the way. If you sign a contract saying that you’ll cooperate with all investigations … and then you withhold relevant information … you can be disciplined. And it’s not a violation of any right to privacy that you may or may not have, because you AGREED.

NFL commissioner and former Jets public relations intern Rodger Goodell

Mr Floria
I would like to know if the balls used in the Super Bowl were inflated to league standards and if so how could Tom Brady have thrown 4 count them 4 Touchdowns against the best defense since the Bears of 1985 according to ESPN
I mean after all everybody in the country thinks he needs them under the legal limit to win as in the Colts thumping game when the balls were maybe under maybe not under
How could he win that game is a mystery to me?

1. Curly took the bags of VERIFIED balls out of the ref room AGAINST LEAGUE RULES WHICH ARE CLEARLY KNOWN, stopped in a room for over a minute, and went to the field. Curly has no explanatuon for why he did that.

2. Curly and Larry repeatedly texted about Moe and Curly called himself the Deflator.

3. Moe gives valuable autographed memorabilia to Curly, somebody he said he didnt know, and AFTER Curly and Larry talking about in relation to the size of footballs for the game.

4. Moe refuses to turn his cell phone over TO HUS OWN ATTORNEYS! IN DEFIANCE OF WRITTEN LEAGUE RULES?

5. Mie refuses to refute the report, even though he may be punished and suffer a tarnushed rep.

What is also amusing to me is that the Wells Report crew takes Walt’s word that New England’s footballs were all 12.5-or-so and the Colts’ balls were all 13.0-or-so; yet, it is more probable than not that Anderson used the gauge that he states he was pretty sure he didn’t use. I used to use this type of very flawed logic as a young child …

“Everyone assumes he was hiding text messages about deflated footballs when it’s “more probable than not” he was trying to protect private stuff that was non-football related on his phone.”
==================================

correct.

Wells has the texts with the ball boys that pertain to the issue. I’m sure the “contacts” list on Brady’s phone contains texts with business, entertainment, real estate and politics connections that are not meant for the public. Say, for example, there’s messages pertaining to running for some political office in 2018 or so, do you really think that would have been kept private? Same if there’s serious health problems with a family member. Say there’s texts between Brady and Geisel about her deciding to stop modeling before she made her announcement.

The whole Exponent report seems written to try to twist the facts to prove the Patriots guilty of tampering.

First, the report condemns the Patriots based on the fact that their balls deflated around .7 psi more than the Colts balls deflated. But this is easily explained by the Exponent figure 22, which shows based ACTUAL EXPERIMENTS that if you measure the Patriots’ balls at 2 minutes after returning at half-time, and the Colts at 8 or 9 minutes, you get such a difference (because the Colts’ balls had more time to heat up). Thus there’s no effect left to condemn the Patriots. So what does the report do?

First, in Appendix A, it shows that .7 psi is statistically significant, but IGNORING the the time difference in the half-time measurements. It implies that this statistical significance somehow proves something important. It proves nothing if you ignore the difference in time when the Patriots balls were measured and the Colts’ balls were measured.

Then in Figures 24-28, the report substitutes the results of the actual experiment shown in Figure 22, with other curves that show only a difference of .3 or so psi for measuring earlier. These reports look similar at first glance, and most people won’t carefully look at the numbers on the axes, but they give very different conclusion. Why are these curves so different from the ones in Figure 22? No good explanation is given.

jeffesky says:….. See the NFL had the facts on two non-superstars, so he can go easy. Now to make an example, after screwing up with Rice, he wants to drop the hammer on Tom with no facts! Roger needs to be given his Golden Parachute!

Florio is killing the Wells report today, though he’s not going far enough. In fact, if we work with the best evidence here, the pressure readings not only don’t prove tampering, they tend to prove that none occurred (in that we get the results expected given the ideal gas law, and nothing else).

Florio should also lay off Brady. The more he destroys this report as biased garbage, the more he demonstrates exactly why Brady was right not to trust it with his private information.

Finally, we need answers to two questions: why, if they pressure readings clearly exonerate the Pats, did the investigation continue? Why was the NFL so eager to hang its biggest star? They should just have said: “Assuming Walt’s recollections are correct, there does not seem to be any evidence of deflation. Teams are, however, hereby warned to be careful on this point. NFL will be watching.” End of story.

Relatedly, who in the NFL leaked the lie that the balls were two PSI low? That lie, more than anything, created a media firestorm – clearly by design.

If parties inside the NFL, with the cooperation of rival clubs, are going after the Pats, that is a bigger scandal than anything alleged here.

The fact the NFL is trying to pass this off as an “independent” investigation is laughable. They’ve omitted information that could incriminate NFL procedure. The report heavily hangs on the testimony of Walt Anderson’s recollections, how many times do the refs blow a call and need replay to bail them out? why should the public trust anything the NFL says or does when they repeatedly lie and try to cover their own behinds. This is setting a very dangerous precedent, and if I were in the Player Union I would want immediate reform to discipline procedure.

It is disgraceful the NFL would allow such a flawed report to be released. They should of sent it back and told the ‘impartial’ Ted Wells to fix it.
Hope they are ready for the $100 million defamation suit by Tom Brady. FREE TOM BRADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forget about the science analysis folks, it’s blown up. Anyone that’s gone beyond 8th grade knows that. There’s no baseline. That’s like doing a lab experiment w/o controls. Only 4 of the Colts FBs were tested. The company’s bias/ incompetence is well established. They ignore possibilities that don’t fit the narrative. They guess. Forget about it.

It’s all about the texts. As I said in a previous post, they probably show tampering with FBs after the refs inspected them. A minor rules violation. Not to cheat, but to make sure they’re at 12.5, in accordance to rule. We’ll see if all the fans of teams that have been kicked around by the Pats over the yrs finally get their wish. Over the top suspensions for Brady and Belichick so their team can finally win.

“Although the pre-game measurements were not recorded in writing, based on witness interviews conducted by Paul, Weiss, the starting pressure for the Patriots footballs was reported to be AT OR NEAR 12.5psi and the starting pressure for the Colts footballs were AT OR NEAR 13.0.”

The NFL doesn’t even know what the pressures were to start! At or near.. what if it was 12.2 or even 12 to start? That is near.

Remember, it is the NFL referee’s job to ensure all the footballs start with at least 12.5psi, not the Patriots job.

It is sad commentary on society today that 90% of Americans care more about seeing Brady’s texts than they do seeing Hillary Clintons and think that the importance of the ball being deflated or not is higher than the business of the Secretary of State and leading candidate for President.

The Patriots’ footballs decreased .72 -.75 (or .66 – .68) psi more than the Colts’ footballs. The decreased air pressure for both teams should be approximately the same regardless of which instrument was used…

Regardless of which gauge was used, both teams’ footballs should have lost approximately the same amount of air pressure during the first half.
————————————————

What Florio is pointing out is that the difference was created from thin air. They used the high gauge on all balls before the game. So a ball set to 12.5 was really 12.1. And balls set to 13.0 were 12.6.

Then they checked at half-time and the balls dropped the same (though in a warm room the balls checked last should be higher). Since that didn’t show a difference they decided to assume the Patriots balls and ONLY the Zpateiots balls were checked with the high gauge. Meaning they dropped more according to the assumption. They did this despite the ref saying that’s not the gauge he used, he said he used the low gauge on all the balls. They could have just as easily said the Colts balls were checked with the high gauge to prove deflation. The error is compounded by the fact that the ref that they don’t believe remembers the gauge correctly is the same ref they rely on to memorize the pressure of 24 balls.

The more you read this report, the more amazing it is. Anderson’s testimony was clearly cajoled and massaged – and he even seems suspicious of the repeated questioning as to which gauge he used (“I don’t know about that”.) And, as Florio points out once but should have emphasized more, unless we senselessly disregard this testimony, THE EVIDENCE PROVES THAT THERE WAS NO TAMPERING (the evidence isn’t just “inconclusive”, it is in fact exculpatory). The hysterics in the media may be able to ignore this, but if Brady is suspended an arbitrator will eat Wells and Goddell alive. I wonder if this is stating to sink in with that air head commissioner.

If the goal of the NFL rule is to maintain NFL regulation footballs at 12.5 to 13.5 psi (1 psi tolerance), then only a idiot would try to do that with a gauge that is not calibrated to a NIST standard and does not have a validated calibration certificate to prove it. Only a idiot would try to perform such a critical task with a critical pressure range using a mickey mouse gauge from Wal-Mart.

The NFL should be ashamed of themselves to allow such a bush league investigation to take place…. In the meantime allow the face of your league to get trashed at every corner of this country. Now that Brady has his 4th ring… I hope he says screw it…. Playing for these crooked bunch in the NFL isn’t worth it anymore. Adios Rodger you clown

Good job Florio. Way to examine both sides objectively rather than feed the mob. The more this report is dissected, the less likely I think they can fine the Patriots for wrongdoing let alone suspend the Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady for even less evidence. I think the assumption of a Brady suspension was more a media creation than something the league plans to do. And if they do, I expect a heavy fight from Brady and his representation that could get nasty. Let’s go.

Kudos,really ?? How completely dumb are all of you.The balls were below a certain psi the Colts balls were not – It’s that simple !! Brady ordered his balls to be below 12.5 and the texts prove he dam well knew.How gullible can you be ?? Brady will be suspended,get used to it Pat’s fans.

Bottom line, the ” more likely than not” standard applies AFTER proof of rule violation, to establish culpability. If no proof of rule violation exists, no culpability is possible. If I remember correctly, Sherman got away with having his PED suspension reversed because the chain of possession of his urine sample was broken. Was it more likely that he took PEDs than that someone in a lab decided to spike his pee? Of course, but in the absence of definitive evidence that his sample was naturally positive, the violation did not exist, and no culpability can be assigned. If a sample is positive, typically a player looks for an excuse: some OTC med, spiked drinks and such, but at that point the ” more likely than not” logic applies.
So here, IF there was solid evidence of balls being deflated below natural limits, then it would be more likely than not someone in the Pats organization did it. But that evidence is actually lacking, despite Wells trying real hard to find/concoct some. So, nothing to see here, move on. By the way, the NFL clowns blew this one too, all the executive leadership must go.

So hold on wait a minute. Every other piece of “evidence” whether you think it’s fishy or not can in some way be explained away. But the one thing, THE ONE THING, that couldn’t be explained away and launched this investigation in the first place, is now possibly based on an error?! Brady just had his entire legacy tarnished over cheap, uncalibrated air gauges, one of which obviously wasn’t accurate when compared to the other, and a ref who can’t remember with certainty which one was used prior to the game? This has now fully entered the realm of the utterly surreal.

Still no proof, but certainly this makes it more likely than not, as was the finding. The finding was at the proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather a preponderance of evidence. He doesn’t have a photo of him using the one or the other gauge so there could never be anything other than memory. Memory is that he used the one and not the other. Is it possible that he didn’t? Yes, as he correctly answered, anything is possible. Is it probable that he remembers correctly? It is more likely than not.

This is but one item in a laundry list of items that each on their face can be challenged and reasonably so. However, added all up together there is clearly problems with the defense of Brady and I agree with the finding.

So if Brady texted these two guys you would think that would show up on their phone. Just shows this is a witch hunt by the NFL. Biased report and scare tactics to get people to say what the league wants.

“No phone…., no play”. What are you?, follow the crowd guy? You’re seriously lacking a pitchfork like that report is lacking evidence. Would you turn your cell phone over to some crony that would most definitely deliver it to an office notorious for scandal, leaks, cronyism, no tax paying accountability even though they’re American, and general character flawed individuals(commonly known as ‘jerks’)? And that same crony and office has no moral and legal authority to do so.

After Tom receives his mega-million dollar settlement from the NFL following his record-setting defamation of character lawsuit, he’ll probably renegotiate his contract with the Pats to play the rest of his career for pennies on the dollars, thus increasing the Pats’ cap space to an ineviable level.
Most awesome post I’ve read so far !!!!!!

Why did Anderson have two gauges to begin with? I assume just in case one does not work. So one is his “primary” and the other is his “back-up”. He very likely knows which one he used – the one with the logo based upon page 52 is his “#1” gauge – and when it did not fit the league’s narrative for tampering and could help exonerate – at least partially or raise reasonable doubt – they pushed on as Florio notes above until they got enough gray area/doubt so they could flip it on page 116.

He has done a brilliant job of logically finding the fallacies in the report and reducing them to understandable terms.

If the texts were enough, they would not have gone out of their way to err on the side of guilty.

He doesn’t proclaim the Pats or Brady are innocent. He states that their are logical errors in the case that are more evidence of bias than guilt. I hope Florio’s conclusions pick up steam with other media. “Even Florio”? He is the only writer in the mainstream who has so cogently encapsulated this.

One can believe whatever they want. Mr Wells has also argued in other venues that tobacco doesn’t cause cancer and that asbestos doesn’t cause cancer / mesothelioma. He is a hired gun paid to deliver what his client asks.

Bottom line…. basing the case on the pump that Referee Anserson recalls using pregame, the halftime measurements had only 3 of 11 balls under what Wells says was expected. One was 0.02 PSI too low, one was 0.32 PSI too low, and one was 0.42 too low. Three were high. The texts don’t supersede measurements. And Anderson’s word is relied on an indisputable in other parts of the report.

They may have been doing it. It wasn’t proved by even the lowest standard of proof required for punishment.

Marianfl24, you apparently can’t read. Florio’s report clearly shows that, if we trust the ref’s testimony, the Pats balls were NOT below the PSI one would expect given initial conditions and the weather. The Colts and Pats balls were all exactly where you’d expect they’d be. You are simply wrong.

This whole thing is absurd. People want to label an all-time great as a cheater because he may have taken a shortcut that many other QBs also take, and which is of so little impact to the game that the league never even had a legitimate method of monitoring and enforcement.

“Brady has AGREED to cooperate with investigations, as part of the CBA and his NFL contract.”

Nope. There is a standard waiver in the case of union employment, but within that waiver the NFL cannot subpoena phones.

Brady, btw, can’t agree or not agree with this. If he wants to be part of the NFL he has to be part of the union. If you are part of the union, you abide by the policies. The policies clearly state the NFL cannot demand phone data, computer data, etc.

Again, the most they’ve ever been able to fine someone for obstruction is $50k.

Put aside your prejudices and realize the facts. In the Saints’ boutnygate scandal, an entire suspension for obstruction, all 7 games was given stay and then vacated by a judge and then an arbitrator. That was for destroying a team owned hard drive , and it was a non-union employee without bargained rights.

Haha. The NFL can’t put in a stipulation that players turn over phones or they cannot play. They simply cannot do that. It would give the NFL powers above and beyond what even the United States’ courts have.

If you cannot legally take someone’s phone, you cannot legally fire them for not giving it to you. The latter scenario turns a constitutional right into something hollow.

And yes the CBA does say that they have to respond to investigations. He did. It also says after that that cellphone data is not something the NFL can forcibly require as part of the investigation.

They certainly cannot suspend him for not turning it over. The worst they can do is slap a fine on the guy, of max $50k (what they fined Favre for not cooperating, and what they fined the Chargers for not cooperating).

There is so much legal precedent to this you are up a creek with no paddle. There is no argument. It’s been roundly, and I mean roundly, shown that this isn’t something the NFL can do.

Sorry, not sorry. Your dreams of Goodell coming to the rescue of whatever mediocre team you root for by removing the best player in the league are merely dreams dude.

Maybe if you were so concerned about the ability of the NFL to subpoena phones, you should have been furiously blogging when Favre didn’t give his up. If you were so worried about the right of players to withhold evidence, you should have been all over it when the Chargers refused to turn over their stickum towels.

But those weren’t the badguy who stuck a dagger in your team’s heart. So now, you care. Lol

Ted Wells reports have always been completely biased in finding the accused guilty. Incognito cooperated fully, and it proved that he was a meathead that treated Martin like a friend. He was still thrown under a bus.

In this case, they cant even conclude with certainty that the accused(Brady) is guilty.

IE, Wells couldn’t even come up with enough evidence to prove a predetermined outcome. He also completely ignores evidence that would help Tom Brady’s case.

IE, 3 of 4 Colts balls were underinflated according to one gauge. 2 gauges were calibrated differently or both were inaccurate. What kind of investigation is this?

Looks like the tide is turning on this pathetic so called investigation… sorry NFL but Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots will be back in September and they will be as nasty and vindictive as ever. No playoffs for the Jets, no Superbowl for Peyton Manning and the Broncos.

Come, on, the equipment guy calls himself “The Deflator”, Brady gives him signed memorabilia in payment for his illegally deflating the game balls AFTER they were checked by the refs before games.

Brady lies about it, tries to orchestrate a cover-up by meeting with the equipment guy in the QB Lounge and refuses to cooperate fully with investigators. The Head Coach has a total and complete “lack of institutional control” and you guys say they are innocent?

“…And Tom Brady should be presumed guilty at best and suspended indefinitely until he gives up his text messages and emails at worst for his failure to cooperate with the investigation.”

——————
Why should he be suspended if the NFL can’t even prove there was a violation? The whole thing becomes moot as soon as it becomes impossible to determine if a violation occurred.

The NFL screwed this up as badly as possible. No one with half a brain would have looked at those numbers and proceeded with this debacle of an investigation. Without cheating (that’s right, “cheating”) on the stats, the NFL doesn’t even have a demonstrable violation.

@marianfl24…really? Did you read the report or just headlines to all the articles written about it? Not one word said that Tom Brady ordered the balls to be below 12.5 PSI. In fact, it IS in the text messages that in a game earlier in the season, Brady was pissed about the balls feeling like “bricks” in which it was confirmed those footballs were at 16 PSI, and filled by an official to that pressure. Which is absolutely outside the realms of the league’s PSI requirements. Where is the outrage? Where are the pitchforks? An NFL official pumped up a football up to 2.5 PSI OVER the league limit. Brady got pissed! He cussed out his equipment guys. BUT HE DID NOT TELL THEM TO MAKE SURE THE BALLS were below 12.5 PSI. That is at least one thing not in the report! Read it. Again. And again.

So if Brady texted these two guys you would think that would show up on their phone. Just shows this is a witch hunt by the NFL. Biased report and scare tactics to get people to say what the league wants.”

Exactly, which means that Wells was going “fishing” … which is what law enforcement calls it.

You cannot “go fishing” for evidence without probable cause even if you are a police officer. Try getting a warrant based on that.

The NFL, and any employer, has far, far less rights in respect to private property than the courts do.

McNally and Jastremski were using Patriots’ supplied cell phones, and are not union employees, perforce they had to give them over as long as Kraft instructed them to give them over. For Kraft to be in the NFL, he is going to do that.

But a union player doesn’t have to, and the NFL cannot fine them for not giving up cellphone data. The most they can do is slap a low level, vaguely worded $50k fine, that will ultimately be overturned if the NFLPA wanted to pursue it. That is because they would have to have the fine allocated for some other obstruction outside of not giving up the phone.

Okay so let me get this straight. People want to assume the patriots are guilty because of their past “Incident(s)” (A.K.A spygate). But the “Smoking gun” of the report is based on statistics done by exponent, a company notorious for coming up with false conclusions based on incomplete or regression statistics. So how come people can use the patriots past as a guilty verdict, but also accept exponents statistics as valid even though their past is incredibly shady and dishonest (THEY SAID SECOND HAND SMOKE DOESN’T CAUSE CANCER). Why are people cherrypciking what they want, in order to find the patriots guilty? remember people this is the same NFL that said concussions wont cause CTE. Theres no integrity in the league, yet you think that their doing a just, and unbiased investigation. I dont blame Brady for not handing over his txts to the same people who leaked “11 out of 12 balls were under 2 PSI” when none of the balls were under 2 PSI. You honestly dont think that Wells would spin bradys txts the same way he hired exponent to spin the statistics of the PSI? i mean, we know that they lied about the starting point of the PSI. So why wouldnt they lie again? they started with the guilty verdict, and they spent 100 days trying to find all that they could to justify that guilty verdict because thats what the majority of the fans wanted. Look if im wrong, tell me and ill listen (unbiased at that). But what i just said sounds like air-tight logic and i didnt even mention how Wells omitted things that brady and others said to fit his initial hypothesis of a rules violation. This was a witch hunt by a inferior coach (Grigson). I dont think Goodel was involved but i know Kensil was. Goodel just did a horrible job managing it. Prove me wrong people.

Can everyone acknowledge that Wells oversaw the fbi when there a concerted effort to over emphasize faulty forensic evidence which resulted in the incarceration of hundreds and the actual execution of some.

Bush league investigation. No where does it say that Brady “more probable than not” deflated the balls nor does it say Brady “more probable than not” ordered the balls to be deflated below 12.5. The word definitely appears 0 times in the report. Words assume and probably over 100 times.

Florio, I have called you a Patriots hater on more than one occassion. And I feel confident with your love for the Steelers that you have very little love lost for the Patriots. But with these last two posts, I take back most of what I’ve said and thought about your journalistic integrity. Thanks for these posts – it’s great to see you challenging the predetermined outcome of this frame up.

SKOL-LOLOLOLOL says:
May 10, 2015 2:06 PM
Joe Montana is the GOAT. Brady…..is too much of a cheater and a fraud to be mentioned in the same breath as Montana.
——————————

Skol, you do realize that The Niners got caught cheating on the salary cap, Rice admitted he cheated and used Stickum and Walsh admitted they would claim their headsets had stopped working to make the other team turn their’s off, just so Montana could use a carefully scripted series of plays. And Jeff Blake said every team in the league deflated balls every game during the 13 years he played in the league.

Does Brady lack of cooperation include anything besides not giving up his phone and email? If that’s all – I can see why he would refuse. This whole fiasco has been marked by a stream of leaks (some of which were false, but leaks nonetheless). Why would Brady provide the exposure for his texts to his famous wife and to the famous mother of his first child? You know they would be leaked (false or not). Any relevant texts were already available on the phones of the two staff members.

If he is punished, it should be no more than the penalty Favre got for “lack of cooperation.” And no more than Rodgers is getting for admitting his team overinflates – oh wait, that’s not even being investigated, is it?

More importantly… why are they not calibrated properly. They were off by 1/2 PSI. Which is within the Patriots “underinflation”

If the refs don’t have a standard calibrated gauge… how can anyone conclude that this issue was of any importance (until it involved the evil patriots)

The report is so full of holes, its unbelievable! It took this long, and they couldn’t even fill these holes.
———————————————————-
I agree. No question.

Sadly, I think hammer is falling anyway. Need to have fall guy for $5 million investigation and RG does not seem to care if it is on one of the top 1-3 QBs in NFL history – + great ambassador for game and in community.

If forced to predict what Goodell does (not what I would do, but what I think he does), I am going with 2 game suspension, large fine for Brady and team, and a 3rd, 4th, or 5th round pick. We’ll see.

More importantly, here’s a question. How can an investigation be “independent” if one side pays for it and gets to pick the investigator? Imagine the furrowed eyebrows and subsequent findings if the Patriots or the union said they were paying for the investigation and got to pick the investigator.

Brady and players should push union to have better rules in place when next CBA is up – in cases like this, both sides pay 50% of the bill and the investigator is mutually agreed upon.

Another thing that is weird that no one seems to be mentioning is that two refs, Blakeman and Prioleau, measured the Patriots balls with two different gauges, with Blakeman’s readings being consistently slightly lower than Prioleau on all 11 balls. Yet, when they each measure the four Colts balls, Blakeman all of a sudden comes up with 3 readings lower than Prioleaus, and one higher. Whats that about? It could be nothing but its one of those things that you immediately look at in a graph which makes no sense, but theres no explanation for it.

As I’ve said NUMEROUS times on posts about this report…As a professional investigator I’d be embarrassed to attach my name to this report. It is seriously flawed, from the use of Exponent for scientific analysis to the selective use of evidence and information.

Florio is right that none of that exonerates Brady. But a valid scientific analysis or valid review of ALL the texts made available would likely shift the level of probability to atmospheric conditions AND insufficient pregame measurement.

The integrity of the shield is tarnished more by an incompetent investigation or negligent refs than it is by throwing Brady under the bus.

the report is not full of holes. Everyone outside of new england agrees. It is far more conclusive than anyone expected. And Brady, to this day, has not directly denied the accusation!

Colts suspect deflated ball in reg season
Refs check at halftime and find many balls well below regulation
Brady gives a ridiculously bad press conference
Brady asked by bob costas if he did it, brady doesnt answer
Video of ballboy entering a lockable bathroom
Same ballboy calls himself the deflator (DUH!)
Ballboys talk about needles and deflation in texts
Large spike in phone communication with brady and one of the deflators IMMEDIATELY following the AFCCG
Brady claims he does not know Mcnally, but texts contridict this (brady even references mcnally) – he’s a liar
Patriots refuse a 5th interview with Mcnally (the central figure in the investigation) because of his other job! LOL!
Brady refused to provide cellphone even if data collection is supervised by his lawyer
Brady asked again if he did it (at salem) – doesnt answer
Don Yee goes through a litany of arguments but never directly says that Brady had no involvement

Hey Mike, if you’re seeing this agended sham of a report for what it is then just imagine the field day Brady’s lawyers will have with it.
I predict Goodell will suspend Brady for 2 games, will be reduced to 1 after appeal and the MAIN reason given for the suspension will be the NFL’s claim that Brady did not cooperate with the investigation.
In my opinion ANY suspension of Brady will bring legal action from him.
This was a witch hunt and Brady will not sit quietly by.
Just imagine how different this story will play once Brady, Jastremski and McNally have their say.

in the wake of aaron hernandez being done in by his own security cameras, isnt it a little ironic that the same happened with deflate gate? one of the key pieces of evidence, aside from the texts and deflated balls, is the video of mcnally entering a lockable bathroom!

You know with all this sloppy lax investigating and making assumptions it seems to me the NFL and Ted Wells and his firm might be looking to get owned for defamation in this report. The standard is way higher for a celebrity, but given the NFL and Wells reports publishing of conclusions based on such speculation and lax methods this thing may go on for years! Unbelievable!

btw for you fools who keep bringing up aaron rodgers. he submits overinflated balls to the refs and tries to get them passed. he does not have his ballboys inflate them in front of a toilet AFTER the refs have approved them.

As to the locker room attendant who referred to himself as the “Deflator,” that, too, can be easily explained. Brady likes the balls on the low end of the legal range. Attendant thus always deflates the any ball over that to 12.5 psi. Ends up nicknaming himself the, “Deflator.” No where was there shown a directive from TB to the attendant to lower deflation below specs. As pointed out, any texts from Brady would have been on the attendants’ phone, too, and they weren’t. Such a high profile figure is understandibly reticent to turn over a phone (which may have personal family texts and photos, or heck, even a compromising text/photo from a mistress, lol) with all the “leaks” this witch hunt has had.

shadywarrior says:
May 10, 2015 4:04 PM
I’m a Pats fan, full disclosure. But no matter if you’re a fellow fan or an anti-Patriots jihadist, I think we all can agree that his whole situation was bungled by the league from Jump Street.
——-
“Shady” was an appropriate and prophetic username choice, giving you’re a NE fan. Notice how Mr. Shady with his subliminal suggesting that if you’re for NE you’re just a “fan”…mom, country and apple pie stuff…but if you don’t agree that NE did NOT cheat you’re a “jihadist.”

You know a part of me kind of wishes that Brady is suspended for 4-6 games, not because I think that Brady did anything wrong (the report is a hot mess and proves only that Wells is not competent or objective), but rather because I’d love to hear how Goodell justifies suspending Brady based on a sketchy report full of innuendo but short on facts for a big chunk of the season while less than a year ago he originally suspended Ray Rice for 2 games for what he did.

Goodell has proven over and over that he is not up to the job and yet no one has taken him to task. I would hope that a Brady suspension would create the sort of backlash to get Goodell fired because he just has to go.

and for you people who think brady will sue. you are truly delusional. you think he wants those 2 clowns on a stand under oath, being cross examined, for as long as NFL lawyers feel like? Do you think brady wants to be questioned under oath? He wont even deny involvement to bob costas or jim gray! lawyers will be able to subpoena ALOT more information and witnesses.

Only remaining logical out for the NFL is to admit that the discrepancies and shortcomings of the Wells Report demonstrate that a definitive conclusion in this case is unattainable. No penalties of any kind are imposed. League learns from this and now stipulates that henceforth all games balls will remain in the possession of NFL officials.

shadywarrior says:
May 10, 2015 4:04 PM
I’m a Pats fan, full disclosure. But no matter if you’re a fellow fan or an anti-Patriots jihadist, I think we all can agree that his whole situation was bungled by the league from Jump Street.
——-
“Shady” was an appropriate and prophetic username choice, giving you’re a NE fan. Notice how Mr. Shady with his subliminal suggesting that if you’re for NE you’re just a “fan”…mom, country and apple pie stuff…but if you don’t agree that NE did NOT cheat you’re a “jihadist.”

Sly that NE organization and their fanbase…can’t be trusted.

You still lost!!!!!!! You can infer what you want, but you still lost!!!!!! #TB12GOAT

Yes it can. The Wells report itself states there is no direct evidence that the balls were deliberately deflated below the psi limit. This report is also full of inconsistencies and biased assumptions.

“2. If your offense and defense knew the other teams plays before the snap like the Pats did via Spygate is a huge advantage.

That can’t be argued.”

You obviously have no idea what Spygate was all about. The Patriots continued a common practice among all teams – taping defensive signals for analysis from the sidelines – after it was ruled illegal by the league. The signals filmed were used for analysis for future games. There is literally zero reason to think the Patriots “knew the other teams [sic] plays before the snap”.

“3. Cutting fumbles in half by deflating the ball like the Pats have done is a huge advantage.

That can’t be argued.”

I assume you’re referring to the Sharper “analysis”, which has been debunked in multiple ways. Google “fivethirtyeight ballghazi”.

Honest analysis of the Patriots’ fumble numbers during the time period in question reveals no statistical outliers.

“5. Despite protests that it’s common practice and the idea Bellichick is a genius, the Pats are the only team to be caught, not once but twice.

Again, that’s factual.”

Teams cheat all the time. Google “your team cheats”. This includes the Patriots.

HAHAHAHA!! Only a delusional pats fan could think that was a convincing denial! Why didn’t he just say to bob costas ” I had no involvement”. Why didn’t he say that at salem? We know he’s capable of using the phrase “absolutely not”? He just wont use it in reference to the cheating accusations against him!

Only remaining logical out for the NFL is to admit that the discrepancies and shortcomings of the Wells Report demonstrate that a definitive conclusion in this case is unattainable. No penalties of any kind are imposed. League learns from this and now stipulates that henceforth all games balls will remain in the possession of NFL officials.”

GOD you guys are delusional. Remember when you though colts would be losing draft picks, and possibly the ravens? Remember when you thought youd be getting an apology? The logical “out” is a brady suspension. That is REALITY. Get used to it.

I have no doubt that the Patriots, after the Jets game ball being 16 psi(where is the investigation into that???) , put a plan in place to remeasure and if necessary adjust the air pressure in the game balls after the refs measured them . However I see no evidence that they actually ever had to ‘fix’ the psi in any game.

iamapatsfan says:
May 10, 2015 3:24 PM
I love how everyone is saying Brady must be guilty, he’s hiding it on his phone. You know, all the texts he sent to his ball guys to under-inflate the balls.

Except, you know, all those same texts would also be on those phones that the NFL did look through. Funny, there wasn’t anything. How does that work?
——–
I’ll keep it simple for you since you’re obviously challenged to figure it out on your own.

Once the other 2 were caught in obvious lies, and Brady denying, read “lying”, that he even knew them the motivation for the investigation to see Brady’s phone was to see who else Brady was communicating with on the team. Uh, Belicheck maybe? Don’t be a dunce. Common sense. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to understand how an investigation works and how wrong doer’s, even in public companies, like the NFL, get caught doing wrong. Stop being a homer…

“Such a high profile figure is understandibly reticent to turn over a phone (which may have personal family texts and photos, or heck, even a compromising text/photo from a mistress, lol) with all the “leaks” this witch hunt has had.

Bottom line: This investigation should never have even taken place.”

First of all, they asked ONLY for texts/emails related to the case and even allow his lawyers or Brady himself to filter it before handing it over, so that is just a stupid comment.

Second of all: The investigation should have taken place because they were caught red handed tampering with footballs AFTER the refs certified them.

If McNally changed the pressure of the footballs, the data suggests that one of two things is true:

a) he took out about 0.26 psi of air on average, thus getting the 1.39 psi average pressure drop predicted by one of the two gauges that might have been used, vs. a 1.13 psi drop as predicted by the ideal gas law. This ignores the effect of water on the footballs, which probably should not be ignored, and could account for all of the “extra” 0.26 psi drop

or

b) he put in about 0.12 psi of air on average, thus getting the 1.01 psi average pressure drop predicted by one of the two gauges that might have been used, vs. a 1.13 psi drop as predicted by the ideal gas law.

Yes, the data does not even make it clear whether he took air out, put air in, or neither.

The Colts footballs dropped less in psi than predicted by the ideal gas law because they were not tested until near the end of the 13-minute halftime break, so they had ample time to at least partially warm up in the heated room. The is why they seemed to be different from the Patriots footballs: THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY WERE ANALYZED.

If they suspend Brady, then let’s suspend Aaron Rodgers for 8 games as well since he admitted to playing with OVER-INFLATED footballs? This is pathetic. There is no standard the NFL uses for PSI inflation. It’s left to the DISCRETION of each QB how they want the football and how inflated they want it? Aaron Rodgers is just the tip of the iceberg. Do you honestly think that if you checked EVERY OTHER QB and the inflation rates of their footballs that you’d find every one between 12.5 and 13.5? If you do, I have some swamp land in Kansas to sell you. Why doesn’t the NFL interview other QBs and check the inflation rates of footballs from other games not involving the Patriots if they really want to get to the bottom of this. Or do they really not give a damn if it doesn’t involve the Patriots? This entire thing is a disgrace and I hope Brady sues the NFL for defamation of character. And there is no smoking gun that shows he told the ballboys to take a needle to the footballs after they were approved.

If there is any doubt at all that the balls were deflated then there is no case.

Im not a NE fan but I am a fan of the game and I dont want to see a witch hunt.

Either bring conclusive evidence or move forward with a memo to the league about that rule and how it will be closely monitored.

This is not to say they did not cheat but if it is not conclusive, it also does not say they did cheat.

This isnt the Salem witch trials. It needs to be handled professionally and thoroughly and if the findings are conclusive and find guilt then the Pats should be penalized very harsh and if not then they should not be at all.

The phones the 2 employees of the pats were actual property supplied by the Pats/ NFL so they HAD to be turned over which they were as part of being fully co operative by the Patriots… Toms phone is his Personal phone not supplied by Pats or NFL so it does not fall under the obstruction aspect of the investigation… But let’s go a little further on this… Would not any & all messages be on those phones if Brady sent them to those 2???… What is the additional need for Brady’s personal phone??? What could it supply in addition to what is already on the other 2 phones??

The scientific data in the Wells report actually fully exonerates the Patriots:

1. Anderson remembers using the Logo gauge to test the balls pre-game. Remember that he tested about 48 balls before the game–all the regular balls and all the backup balls, so his “best recollection” should be taken at face value.

2. The Logo gauge was used to test the Patriots balls about two minutes into half-time, recording an average of 11.49 The Colts balls averaged 12.74 (see table 5 of Exponent report.)

3. The Patriots balls were tested first, then the Colts balls were tested. It’s not known when exactly the balls were tested, but reasonable estimates are that the Patriots’ balls were tested around 2 minutes into half time and the Colts’ balls were tested around 9 minutes into half-time. (We know that they started testing the Patriots’ balls ASAP, and that they ran out of time to test more Colts’ balls).

4. Three of the four Colts’ balls were under-inflated according to the Non-Logo gauge, but fine according to the Logo gauge. Those balls were *not* re-inflated, adding more evidence to the idea that the refs knew that the Logo gauge had been used for pre-game testing!

5. Experiments by Exponent (see Figure 22) show that under the conditions of the game day, you’d expect the Patriots’ balls to measure around 11.5 or 11.6 at 2 minutes into half-time, and the Colts’ balls to measure around 12.7 9 minutes into half time. This is in practically perfect agreement with the Logo gauge data!

The evidence is there, if you read the report. The Exponent “analysis” in Figures 24-28 is garbage; it replaces the experimental results in Figure 22 with other curves that are unexplained and inconsistent with figure 22. In particular, Figure 22 shows about a .7 psi increase due to warming from minute 2 to minute 9, while the other figures only show a .3 psi increase. There is no explanation for the reason the model used in Figures 24-28 is inconsistent with the experimental results shown in Figure 22.

“If they suspend Brady, then let’s suspend Aaron Rodgers for 8 games as well since he admitted to playing with OVER-INFLATED footballs?”
—————————–
You are about the 500th Patriots idiot to post this WITHOUT HAVING A CLUE.

The difference is that Rodgers has them slightly overinflated because he said the refs always let air out of the balls and that is BEFORE they inspect them. They don’t tamper with them AFTER the refs inspect them.

The Patriots tampered with the balls AFTER they were inspected and certified. BIG DIFFERENCE!

SKOL-LOLOLOLOL says:
May 10, 2015 4:35 PM
“Such a high profile figure is understandibly reticent to turn over a phone (which may have personal family texts and photos, or heck, even a compromising text/photo from a mistress, lol) with all the “leaks” this witch hunt has had.

Bottom line: This investigation should never have even taken place.”

First of all, they asked ONLY for texts/emails related to the case and even allow his lawyers or Brady himself to filter it before handing it over, so that is just a stupid comment.

Second of all: The investigation should have taken place because they were caught red handed tampering with footballs AFTER the refs certified them

—————————————–

You are assuming facts not in evidence. They will ask for ONLY the texts related to the investigation. Brady turns them over. Then Wells decides there must be more. So he wants to see everything on the phone. Once you start down that road, there is no going back.

Secondly, no one has been caught red handed. Period. End of story. The Wells reports ASSUMES that some one tampered with the footballs if you use some un proven assumptions and theories. Wells says so himself on page 228 of the report:

” In sum, the data did not provide a basis for us to determine with absolute certainty whether
there was or was not tampering as the analysis of such data ultimately is dependent upon
assumptions and information that is not certain”

It doesn’t matter anymore. The food has been on the stove long enough and it’s time to eat. NE fan would think a sternly worded letter would be far too much punishment, clear thinking football fans won’t be satisfied unless the initial suspension is double digit games and the anti Patriot crowd won’t be satisfied unless Bill, Tom, and Robert are banned from the game.

I’m thinking that this has nothing to do with just the Colts game any more. Whether the balls were tampered with in that game is now secondary to Brady not cooperating with the investigation, as well as the implication that the tampering has been going on for a while. Assuming he is suspended, it’ll be because he didn’t turn over his phone, and because the evidence indicates that he’s done it before. The evidence for that, along with his refusal to share his phone, creates the unavoidable view that he’s guilty of tampering, (even if it wasn’t for the Colts game) and is hiding his messages to keep from implicating himself.

skawh says:
May 10, 2015 4:35 PM
iamapatsfan says:
May 10, 2015 3:24 PM
I love how everyone is saying Brady must be guilty, he’s hiding it on his phone. You know, all the texts he sent to his ball guys to under-inflate the balls.

Except, you know, all those same texts would also be on those phones that the NFL did look through. Funny, there wasn’t anything. How does that work?
——–
I’ll keep it simple for you since you’re obviously challenged to figure it out on your own.

Once the other 2 were caught in obvious lies, and Brady denying, read “lying”, that he even knew them the motivation for the investigation to see Brady’s phone was to see who else Brady was communicating with on the team. Uh, Belicheck maybe? Don’t be a dunce. Common sense. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to understand how an investigation works and how wrong doer’s, even in public companies, like the NFL, get caught doing wrong. Stop being a homer…

—-

and yet, all you provide is, what exactly in relation to my statement?

nothing.

The problem is that there is so many holes and assumptions in the report, you could drive the Death Star through it and not scrape the paint on the paper.

What obvious lies were they caught in? Like the one guy saying he didn’t go anywhere then later on remembering he went to the bathroom? How often do you get questioned by investigators? I have been, and it’s nerve-wracking. I had written down exactly what I knew, and when they asked me about it a few days later, I couldn’t get it all right, because I was nervous, even when I was just a sideshow witness. Saying he didn’t go anywhere, than getting the video feed of him going to the bathroom? That could just as easily be explained by being nervous the first time, then going, “oh, yea, I did go to the bathroom”. It can be really that simple. Unfortunately, the early sensational headlines about the report have already swayed public opinion as media outlets jumped all over themselves to provide the juiciest tidbits without actually reading the meat of the report.

But thanks for assuming my challengeability. Obviously when you lead off like that, you care more about what fits your fancy than about looking at things objectively. I may be a Patriots fan, but when I first read the initial impressions, I also assumed guilt. Getting into it more and more, though, the Report started with a verdict and worked the evidence to support that, rather than starting with the evidence and working to support a verdict.

SKOL-LOLOLOLOL says:
May 10, 2015 4:54 PM
The Patriots and Belicheck have created a culture of cheating that is well documented. Tom Brady was a product of the culture and just did what he was groomed to do.

—-

You must realize you’re starting to lose the argument, hence why you’re gone to big, bold type to try and get your point across. Because yelling louder obviously makes it more thruthy, lol.

“Following the game, before he left the stadium, McNally was interviewed by
members of NFL Security. During that interview, McNally did not mention that
he
had taken
the game balls into the bathroom. Instead, he stated that he walked
directly to the field and that nothing unusual occurred during the walk from the
locker room to
the field. In subsequent interviews, McNally provided varying
explanations for the bathroom stop and his decision not to utilize readily available
bathroom facilities in the Officials Locker Room and adjacent Chain Gang Locker
Room”

“Acco
rding to Exponent, regardless of
the
assumptions
made with respect to the
gauges
used pre
–
game and at halftime
,
the measurements recorded for the Patriots game balls at
halftime cannot be
entirely
explained by the Ideal Gas Law (or variations thereof)
when
applied
to the most
likely game conditions and circumstances. Exponent also concluded that
the
difference
in the magnitude of the
reduction
in air pressure between the Patriots and Colts
footballs
based on the halftime measurements
is statistically signi
ficant.
Dr. Marlow agreed with
Exponent‟s conclusions”

SKOL-LOLOLOLOL says:
May 10, 2015 4:48 PM
“If they suspend Brady, then let’s suspend Aaron Rodgers for 8 games as well since he admitted to playing with OVER-INFLATED footballs?”
—————————–
You are about the 500th Patriots idiot to post this WITHOUT HAVING A CLUE.

The difference is that Rodgers has them slightly overinflated because he said the refs always let air out of the balls and that is BEFORE they inspect them. They don’t tamper with them AFTER the refs inspect them.

The Patriots tampered with the balls AFTER they were inspected and certified. BIG DIFFERENCE!

—-

Actually, this part I mostly agree with you. Rodgers said that he over inflates them and hopes to get them passed the refs. That implies that he knows they don’t really check, and if they do, well, they will just let a little air out to make it closer to the official allowed level. He certainly never said they do anything about the balls afterwords.

He really was just saying he was trying to “game the system”, so to speak, in the hopes that the refs would be their apparently usual lackadaisical selves when dealing with testing the balls’ pressure.

The conclusion on page 172 states regardless of the assumption of which of the gauges where used to obtain the initial game data, there is a statistically significant difference in the decrease of air pressure between the two teams.

__________________
Bingo. Patriots and Colts footballs should have been closer in air pressure, regardless of gauge used, and were not.

The problem with this is it ignores the Colts footballs that were checked and how the results are somewhat the opposite of the Pats footballs where Blakeman’s readings are higher for the Colts while lower for the Pats. Did they swap gauges before checking the Colts footballs or did Walt use a different gauge when checking the Colts footballs before the game? Unlikely.

The differences makes me think they lost some air pressure between each guy checking the footballs and for the Colts, Blakeman checked those first.

I’m also wondering why the Colts footballs tested at the end of the game weren’t 1 psi lower based on the supposed Ideal Gas Law estimation and why the Pats footballs tested at the end of the game which were supposedly inflated to 13 psi at halftime were actually at that range or even higher than 13. Seems the Ideal Gas Law stopped working between the half and the end of the game.

The entire thing is some convoluted mess that the NFL bungled and they need someone to come forward and admit they deflated the footballs for there to be any real proof or validity in all this. I do not like the Patriots or Brady at all and I’d love for all this ‘delfategate’ nonsense to indeed be true but this report is flimsy and it’s time the league moves on from this and it seems Brady is going to get screwed over some seriously weak evidence that he is guilty.

There are already so many holes in the Wells Report that it’s starting to look more than a little pathetic. When you are already pre-disposed to reach a conclusion that the Patriots are guilty and you are under so much pressure to find them guilty to justify the time and expense spent on this report that you will go to great lengths to manipulate evidence to make it look like the Patriots are guilty.

Enough already! Let’s suspend Ted Wells and Walt Anderson for being incompetent at their jobs and then call it a day.

Florio, don’t you know the Patriot lynch mob has already decided on the death penalty? I don’t think this story is allowed to have logical thought associated with it.

All QBs prep balls they way they like them. If they were at 12.5 within the legal limit prior to the game against the Colts. The laws of physics prove the pressure would decrease based on the cold weather.

If the NFL really wants to end this story, just make a new rule that all balls will be kept by the officials at all times at the same pressure. It’s really not that hard.

Wells is clearly leading the witness, Anderson, toward his own preconceived conclusion harbored by Wells and Wells goes one step further and disregards information which does not fit his own preconceived notions about the case. It is not the job of an neutral investigator to create and bend facts through leading questions. No. His job is to collect unvarnished facts before leading toward conclusions.

This is clearly inappropriate behavior.

Another point: In 2012, Chargers were caught rubbing “stick-em” on balls on the sidelines during a game. When confronted by league officials, they refused to hand over the towels that were used to apply the stick-em. No investigation. Just a fine. That is the precedent. If Brady and the Pats get more than a fine, then you know this is a bag job and it could be successfully challenged .

There has been a handful of gates already. With plenty of players turning over phones. And no ‘ leaks”. This league has many go betweens from media. And a lot of misinformation is the norm. Which is your so called leaks.

Once again pats fans seem to think they are on some other level. In the last gate a trainer did not turn over his information / phone he was fired. I guess we can expect the same of Brady.

If Brady is so innocent, then why not cooperate with the investigation. Using a .99 gauge has worked quite well for some time. Unfortunately the Patriots decided once again to cheat. Now we have a major story. Again, why did Brady refuse to cooperate if nothing to hide?

Bingo. Patriots and Colts footballs should have been closer in air pressure, regardless of gauge used, and were not.
————————————————————-
Based on testing 11 Patriot and 4 Colt balls. If they had tested the other 7 Colt balls, maybe the results would tell a different story. Possibly the opposite.

The entire Report is a ” Well – “We Think”- Maybe – the Patriots made balls lighter- Yet- The comment being given is – the Attendant – f— made Watermelons out of the Balls” That statement means they were Blowing them up! Not making them smaller. Now, This statement: Make the Referee agree with You- Roger Goddell, NFL League Office- Or NO MORE REFEREE JOB!

Welcome to Salem ” Witch Trials” 2014-2015.
Why? Because Boston Sports need to Pay for Winning Too Many Major Trophies Since – 2004!

Winning in all areas of Sports makes the League Look like IT – NFL is giving the Patriots and Edge that no Other Teams except the Red Sox, Bruins, and Celtics and Shine in the same Lime light.

Wells was a genius when he handled bountygate. Now, since he’s dealing with media’s money making love child called the Patriots, he’s a buffoon… it’s disgusting the excuses being made for this abomination of a dynasty.

The conclusion on page 172 states regardless of the assumption of which of the gauges where used to obtain the initial game data, there is a statistically significant difference in the decrease of air pressure between the two teams.

__________________
Bingo. Patriots and Colts footballs should have been closer in air pressure, regardless of gauge used, and were not.
———————–
However you fail to take into account that after all the balls were brought in to be tested the Pats balls were tested first & while that was happening the Colts balls were sitting in a warm room for over 9 ministers before being tested allowing the warm air temperature to skew the results… They were so focused on the Patriots ball psi they weren’t able to test more than 4 of the colts balls which in itself also skews the report based on 4 being compaired to 11 to draw a conclusion…. Would have been curious to see how the results would have turned out if they gauged the Colts balls 1st then the Pats after sitting in the warm air an additional 9 minuets than the Colts….the Focus was a sting operation to catch the Pats so the fairness in which the testing was done is a jacked up as all the other variables not taken into account thruout the entire investigation… A keystone cops attempt to find intent where none exists…. Total farce!!!

Wells should be commended for even finding out THIS much given how the Patriots stonewalled him from the beginning. To get this much evidence with no warrants and no subpoenas is impressive.

This is not so much about the infraction, so much as it is about the Patriots thinking they’re better than the league and blocking proper protocol. The punishment MUST be severe, because if it isn’t, other teams will look at a league where you can’t repeat as champions anymore and take their shots bending the rules, willing to risk suspensions the following year where they’re unlikely to win it all.

Robert Kraft should be hammered and Tom Brady should be hammered. Kraft’s puffing out of his chest when he should be more concerned with the integrity of the league he helps moderate is unbecoming of an owner. Brady’s lack of cooperation alone suggests his guilt.

The Patriots are hoping that the uninformed public (and now guys like Florio) continue to hold this investigation to the standard of a criminal trial, which it doesn’t even approach. It’s the only way you could look at them sympathetically.

Great article loved it for once someone sees what I see then WHAM you run he train off the rails just like everyone else and da Brady should be suspended and punished. Based on what? Once again these text messages could be s disgruntled employee. How do you punish someone based on nothing

Estimates based on gauge that reads lower PSI. (If I read report correctly)

* 11.5psi ± 0.1 PSI is the expected PSI of Pats balls
* 3 balls were in the expected range.
* 8 balls were not in the expected range and this was the difference from expected: 0.65, 0.35, 0.8, 0.4, 0.4, 0.55, 1.0, 0.6

I doubt the league wants Brady’s phone to look for texts to the ball boys. They have that already. They are probably looking for any texts that might show Belichick may have been somewhat aware. I’m not sure if they asked for or received Belichick’s phone stuff. They may have needed a trail from Brady to get it.

Regardless, this entire fiasco needs to be ended by Goodell standing at a podium stating that no punishment will be handed out because far too much of the “evidence” is questionable. Reiterate that intentional cheating should never be tolerated and then outline the procedures that will ensure similar situations are avoided in the future.

kracker55 says:
May 10, 2015 6:19 PM
Great article loved it for once someone sees what I see then WHAM you run he train off the rails just like everyone else and da Brady should be suspended and punished. Based on what? Once again these text messages could be s disgruntled employee. How do you punish someone based on nothing
——-
So, I wonder if this “disgruntled employee” as you’ve just thrown under the bus has a story he’d care to share? Well, a guy can dream his story will some day be told. Considering the huge amounts of money, and book deals bound to be shoved in his face, me thinks it’s but a matter of time before we’re hearing from each of them. I’d imagine they’ll be fired this week too, unless they’ve already been fired.

Wells was a genius when he handled bountygate. Now, since he’s dealing with media’s money making love child called the Patriots, he’s a buffoon… it’s disgusting the excuses being made for this abomination of a dynasty.

Wells did not write a report for Bounty Gate. He did for the Incognito report. Read it. It’s night and day. The Incognito report was thorough and allowed the accused some time to rebut. It didn’t jsut give tiny little text snippets, but ranging text conversations in context so the readers could judge the content.

This report is a slice and dice, designed to shoehorn a preconceived verdict around a lack of facts.

Florio’s article demonstrates this thoroughly. Once you have Wells taking Anderson’s word that all the balls were such and such a PSI, then badgering Anderson and hiding that fact, to produce evidence that fits his narrative.

At the end of the day it’s obvious the NFL is trying to frame people to save face.

Actually, isn’t this how legal profession works? If you’re the defense attorney, you assume innocence and find all the evidence to support your position. And if you’re the prosecutor, you assume guilt and find all the evidence to support your position. If you, prosecutor, thinks there isn’t enough to win at trial, you decide not to prosecute; not because you believe there’s no guilt.

Lawyers are not asked to gather the evidence and then decide. Only judges are.

Didn’t the NFL also ask for Gostkowski’s phone? As he declined to provide it, would you think he will also be suspended? I fail to see how they should be suspended for providing their personal material to their employer. We still have rights, and this would seem to be a lawsuit waiting to happen…

I remember a bunch of pats fan, at Least they post that way, were all pump up over the Wells report ( witch hunt )on the bully gate BS, now Richie got about a year and half with out a job, so be careful fans for what you wish for, it could be your team next. Bill

And, for the record, Brady did cooperate with the investigation. He did draw the line at providing his personal property to the league. With the NFLs previous record of leaking information, I do not blame him one bit.

Nobody is talking about it…but in my opinion the 16 PSI thing in the Jets game is disturbing and worth an investigation of its own.

Do we know for sure that the refs pumping up the footballs from a legal 12.5 to an ILLEGAL 16 PSI was an accident? OR… it was no accident and someone told them to do so. And knowing full well Brady’s likes them on the low end of the scale?

In other words… someone tried to affect how Brady throws the football and rig the football game.

I can’t rule it out. In fact I think it’s more probable than not that this was no accident.

Well, that settles it.
The Patriots do not have an obvious culture of cheating dating back many years.
Tom Brady decided not to cooperate with the investigation just because…
He has no skeletons in his closet.

If the NFL owners demanded that Roger Goodell turn over his cell phone and emails to evaluate if he conspired with Ted Wells to predetermine the outcome of the investigation, do you think Roger would comply?

It also double-counts each ball – using both measurements for each one. To say that there are 22 measurements for the Patriots and either 6 or 8 for the Colts (because, of course, they screwed up one of the Colts balls by either transposing the gauges or incorrectly entering the data – hard to say which, but it was one of those two) is rather disingenuous.

Fact is, they had 11 and 3 measurements, and trying to work out anything conclusive when the control n=3 is somewhere between difficult and a complete joke. So Exponent artificially inflated the experiment and control samples by counting each one twice.

In other words, the Wells report concludes on this critical point that it’s “more probable than not” that Anderson’s “best recollection” was wrong.
===
And this is why NWE, its employees, and TB win in US District Court.

I don’t know weather to laugh or cry for you Pat’s fans.You grasp on ANY little thing to prove Brady didn’t cheat,and yet in the end he did and will be punished for it.Then you say Brady will sue,which also in the end will be to no avail. If he appeals or sues the text messages come in – Either way he is toast.

True, there is a hole in this story and I’m not surprised that Mike Florio picked up on it. He also points out that despite the hole, there’s a whole lot of donut too. The NFL likely doesn’t care how much the balls were deflated so much as their was a deceptive process, a deliberate pattern of cheating in place. Look at the Browns GM texting (he got four games), and Sean Payton got a year though there was no evidence of anyone actually being hurt during with the bountygate scandal. Meanwhile, the Pats wooed the country and went to the SB with Tom Brady’s tampered-with footballs. Doesn’t look good for him, cousin.

This was a great parsing of the report. As a Pats fan, I was ready to jump ship. I’ve also accused Florio of bias against my team, but fans about 20 others have as well. This post has got to reach NFL offices. Bet DYee makes sure of that. Gotta give TFlorio the attaboy. BOOM.

“Unless there are at least 3 camera angles of Brady himself sticking needles in balls, it didn’t happen. In fact no one has ever been convicted of a crime without at least that much evidence.”

The rest of us…

“You have illegally, under inflated balls; anyone with half a brain would understand the QB would know it; the Pats’ fumbling since the rule change improved more than be explained; you have equip managers texts calling himself the deflator and demanding payola from Brady; you have Brady texting him and inviting him to his QB room after they got caught, a first; you have Brady refusing to cooperate and an organization not letting the equipment managers to be interviewed again after they realized things were headed south; you have an organization caught before for cheating and other times for illegal substitutions…”

Yeah, maybe the problem is Pats and their fans need to read the rule book, but this time read it to figure out how to play within the rules, not multiple ways to cheat.

Repeat offenders should be penalized more.

Both Belicheat and Shady for a year, multiple picks, huge fine and final warning to that embarrassment named Kraft.

If the NFL owners demanded that Roger Goodell turn over his cell phone and emails to evaluate if he conspired with Ted Wells to predetermine the outcome of the investigation, do you think Roger would comply?

I’m betting he wouldn’t.

And he would be suspended or fired.

Fair enough?

And I really get a kick out you saying Pats will refuse to play or their fans will bring down the shield…

ROFLMAO

Guess what? You’re the only ones who think Shady and Belicheat are innocent. And if you quit watching, who cares? You’re fair weather fans anyway so when you’re not allowed to cheat to win you’ll go away anyway.

All you people who are up in arms over what the Patriots may have or haven’t done…. Where were you when the Falcons or Panthers heated the balls during the game? If you had nothing to say then, you have nothing to say now. It just proves your “outrage” is just jealousy.

how about the simplest answer is the correct one no need to complicate the issue. My 6 year when it was first discovered said the ball boy did it, all that ideal gas law stuff was just to muddy the waters and deflect from the truth. If anyone in NE would’ve manned up in took what was ultimately a 25k fine the issue would be overwith. More self inflicted wounds have been caused due to the lying and the negative PR That’s come with it. Absolutely no one was surprised the pats cheated just surprised they got caught again.

Well done Mike Florio. That’s making good use of your time at CM, and good investigative skills.

I will repeat what I wrote Friday night – not one person knows what the ACTUAL pressure of those footballs was before or during the game because uncalibrated devices were being used to measure their pressure.

It is an unassailable fact.

Out of curiosity, how did the needle get bent? Was the gauge ever dropped? If so, care to guess what a drop might do to a gauge’s accuracy?

Now that the mob mentality has subsided it will be up to intelligent people like you to make the facts known to the lynch mob.

What a complete farce Roger Goodell’s NFL has become. He’s going to destroy a marquee QB over faulty pressure measurements and no standard operating procedure.

“Estimates based on gauge that reads lower PSI. (If I read report correctly)

* 11.5psi ± 0.1 PSI is the expected PSI of Pats balls
* 3 balls were in the expected range.
* 8 balls were not in the expected range and this was the difference from expected: 0.65, 0.35, 0.8, 0.4, 0.4, 0.55, 1.0, 0.6”

Incorrect, the estimates if the “logo gauge” had been used are hidden from the report. The entire report is based on the idea, and steadfastly sticks to it, that the non-logo gauge was used for the initial measurements.

“Had the Logo Gauge been used pre-game, there is a small window in which the Game Day
results from both teams are theoretically explainable. However, this would require the testing
of the Patriots footballs to have begun immediately upon entering the Officials Locker Room,
before the balls had time to warm up. Moreover, a majority of the Patriots balls would have
had to have been in a condition equivalent to what Exponent tested as “wet.””

This is from page 215. One, even though the Patriots had been on the field twice as long as the Colts, the investigators assume that the Patriots’ balls were not more water logged than the Colts’ balls. Two, they assume a constant 12.5 reading on the gauge and a 13.0 reading for the Colts’ balls.

This is, and they never even mention it, impossible due to the variability in the gauges. Here are the ball measurements that the refs had set to “13” at the half.

1 13.50 13.15
2 13.35 12.95
3 13.35 12.95
4 13.65 13.25

You are talking of a .3 psi swing in some instances. That, in itself, is enough to make the claim that all the balls were 12.5 ludicrous.

Even in a situation where they are trying to be as precise as they possibly can be they can’t reliably get a continuous reading within a 1/3 lb margin of error.

So imagine how the readings look pregame, when they were sloppily going through this, and not even recording their information (let alone what gauge they were using)?

When you allow for that margin, plus the margin that the Patriots’ balls were a bit wetter than the Colts balls, it’s no longer a narrow window. It’s pretty close to what the ideal gas law would show.

But none of this matters, because they basically fabricate the pregame readings. They fabricate the gauge (contradicting the ref they believe in every other instance). They then err on the possibility that the balls were “dry” and not “wet.”

It’s a mess. At every single turn, they singularly toss highly likely scenarios that put the balls into a range where they should have been. Even going as far as to work from an ideal guess weight to stage their scenarios.

Here is the truth. The Patriots balls weren’t uniformly 12.5. Some were as much as .2 lower to at least .2 higher than that based on the results attainable from the gauge Anderson remembers using. You can subtract .2 psi from each reading because of the wetness of the balls. You can subtract another 1 psi for the difference in time, the Pats balls starting soon after the Colts balls starting very late (because as they said they measured them til the end, and had to leave early, that’s why the small sample lol).

That’s your scenario. It’s far, far more likely than the one where Anderson used a gauge that he claims he didn’t. Where the balls that have just been out in the rain for 19 of the 30 minutes of play time are dry.

It’s …. a …. bag …. job. The NFL is trying to contort and invent numbers to prove something that the native numbers will not sustain.

Boycott FOR Brady!!! boycott the week 2 Monday Night Football game between the hated JETS and the hated COLTS, give ESPN and the NFL the lowest TV ratings ever for a Monday night football game from the Boston area, and send a message that we are tired of the league targeting the Patriots success. BOYCOTT 4 BRADY!!!!

Both Belicheat and Shady for a year, multiple picks, huge fine and final warning to that embarrassment named Kraft.
——————-
Ahmmmm…. The mind is a terrible thing to waste!!
& so is our time….but I do enjoy knowing that anything Patriots related OWNS YOU as much as most every team & their fans as well…Thanks for the laughs & of course the tears!!!!

The Wells Report I read showed the balls were ALL BELOW THE LEGAL LIMIT of 12.5psi from BOTH GAUGES.

One gauge the balls ranged from 10.5 to 11.8psi (lowest and highest psi’s – most ranged in the high 10’s/low 11’s); the second gauge the range was from 10.9 to 12.3 (most were in the mid 11’s).

Where did you get your numbers?? The Colts balls??

Bottom line is they’ve been cheating for a LONG time – tampering with the balls after they’ve been approved by the Refs – just ask the guy who calls himself the “Deflator”! Right – we can’t. The Patriots wouldn’t let Wells speak with him again once they had all the evidence.

The NFL is going to come down hard on Brady and the Patriots – more for their attempts to circumvent the investigation than the cheating, but both are reason enough for a long suspension – for a start.

Gotta love how you can get a report that says, we don’t know or can we prove the Pats are guilty but we guess they are. Then we find out the main person involved in this all, can’t remember which gauge he used (the good or bad) and admits he could have screwed up. But don’t believe the facts haters! Just go with texts you don’t know the context to and what the lazy media tells you!

There is NO PROOF OR EVIDENCE THAT ANY WRONGDOING WAS COMMITTED. And on the single most important issue in the entire investigation, that of ball inflation in this particular game, testimony of the most important witness at the most crucial moment has been DISREGARDED by the investigator.

And all that’s left is a QB asking these dopes to make sure balls aren’t over-inflated, because he hates the way they feel when they’re on the high end of the spectrum (or even over-inflated, as they were in the Jets game).

The NFL looks so very stupid right now, as they have all along in this case.

I don’t get the whole “didn’t cooperate” thing. He spent an entire day with 4 “investigators” answering questions (which is included in the report as a footnote) but they want to gloss over that. He also showed them his text messages at this meeting, but simply didn’t give him his personal property which he was perfectly within his rights not to. There is a lot of personal information on cell phones today. Why would a guy of Brady’s stature and wealth just hand that over? It’s pretty stupid. So he DID cooperate. Stop saying he didn’t.

skawh says:
May 10, 2015 4:35 PM
“I’ll keep it simple for you since you’re obviously challenged to figure it out on your own.”

================================
tedmurph says:
May 10, 2015 7:51 PM
This was a great parsing of the report. As a Pats fan, I was ready to jump ship. I’ve also accused Florio of bias against my team, but fans about 20 others have as well. This post has got to reach NFL offices. Bet DYee makes sure of that. Gotta give TFlorio the attaboy. BOOM.
================================

Agree with ya Tedmurph; but it has to pass someone’s “higher” scrutiny .

Kudos,really ?? How completely dumb are all of you.The balls were below a certain psi the Colts balls were not – It’s that simple !! Brady ordered his balls to be below 12.5 and the texts prove he dam well knew.How gullible can you be ?? Brady will be suspended,get used to it Pat’s fans.
—–
Not as dumb as you, since 3 of the 4 Colts footballs that they bothered to measure were below 12.5psi, and there is a question about the 4th one.

People are wondering why Brady hasn’t come out & commented yet….with all the knee jerk reaction & media sensationalism that is going on he knew it was best to let it take it’s course & play out so that not only he, but his lawyers & anyone with half a brain stem could review & look at the report for what it is… Or should I say isn’t…
There are sooooo many inconclusive theories,hypotheses, inconsistencies,& outright flaws to the professionalism in this report it’s comical….the NFL PAID Wells to do this report on THEIR BEHALF so how could this possibly be an independent analysis ?? I could go on & on about how results are skewed on so many levels & blatent mistakes were made based on non factual assumptions & ultimately no proof was provided that any intentional misconduct occurred….I mean If Brady actually paid someone to do an independent investigation & the report came back saying that it was ” More probable than not” there were no infractions based on the same inconclusive bumbling as the Wells report has displayed, would not everyone be screaming that because Brady paid for it, the report couldn’t be independent??!! & then poke holes in it left & right like is being done now that calmer more rational & informed people are looking at it for what it truly is… A complete farce of unproffesionalism that serves the soul purpose of those who need justification for what THEY PAID to have meet their needs to find a preponderance of guilt where absolutly none exists based on facts & lack of proof as to the intent of doing what they (the Pats)have been accused of??!!
NFL if not only incompitant but absolutly foolish if they pursue this to fruition….the NFLPA will tear this apart & so would any court in the country!!!
That’s why Brady has not spoke yet… He just wants to see how the League is going to make him respond to all of this & even if they drop it I wouldn’t be shocked to see him go after them for deffermation of character none the less… & he’d win!!!

So no evidence that Brady knew about anything, no evidence that the balls were tampered with and now the evidence points TO nothing happening? Sounds iron clad

Also, so all the refs swear up and down that they’ve never had the balls out of their sight, ever, ever (which means the Pats have never had an opportunity to mess with the balls before) and now the ONE TIME there’s a sting….that’s when they just happen to sneak off and try to deflate the balls? Come on. None of this is believable.

This and the prior story still do not take into account the difference in the Colts balls and the Pats balls, measured with the same device. Any reasonable person reviewing the info will conclude that Brady cheated. Simple as that!

In everything I have read I haven’t seen anything about what the psi of the Colts balls were set at from beginning of game, w/o that you can’t even compare the difference.!

Reading the report it definitely gives the impression that Wells was paid to come to a predetermined preferred outcome. It seems like most of their basis for the opinion is dependent on assumptions, and overall the assumption that the patriots deflated the balls. Certainly Exponent has a long track record of producing ‘science’ that supports whatever claims the purchasing party wants to make. Even with the lower standard of proof required here, it just seems like there are a ton of holes and a great deal of prejudice.

end it all now tommy boy. pass over your phone if you are innocent, the texts will set you free. not that i think his phone is needed to make an intelligent conclusion that he knew what was going on.

tommy disrespected the game plain and simple. he doesn’t need to do this yet he does. he’s a great qb but, sorry, it’s tainted

the nfl cannot tolerate the golden boy of all people pushing the boundaries of the rules and knowingly breaking them

superbowl champs with an * or two

if i was innocent and wanted to clear my name I would hand over my phone so the relevant information could be gathered to clear my name. that’s just me though. other might be more reluctant b/c they have something to hide.

the comments regarding Florio being “biased towards the Pats” are laughable. Haven’t you been following for past week? Florio, PFT, and the entire media have blasted the Pats/TB. Florio even had a posting “Don Yee continues to spread lies about Wells report,” and now “may actually be agreeing with Don Yee.”

I don’t buy that TB should be “Presumed guilty.” At this point, the NFL and Ted Wells should be “presumed guilty.” And at the end of the day, this looks terrible for the NFL.

If you look at the PSI measurements in the report, the Pats balls were down roughly 1 PSI on Prioleau’s gauge IF you assume the Pats balls were at 12.5 to start with the SAME gauge (a BIG assumption). The Colts balls were down roughly 0.6-0.7 PSI at the half. But keep in mind that the Pats also DOUBLED the Colts in time of possession in that game and were certainly using their balls more often in a cold rain. Perfectly logical the Pats balls would be more deflated given that they were using them way more often in that game. The more I look at this the more this report seems like a mess.

What will actually lead to a Brady suspension is the thing I think is most different about the current commish vs. the previous commish. Tags was an even handed justice, looking to keep the shield from embarrassing itself kinda guy. Lil Rogey is a heavy handed punishment, I’m king your not kinda guy.

markjones2000 says:
May 10, 2015 6:22 PM
If Brady is suspended after this witch hunt, Patriots fans need to organize a response to take down the Shield. Ideas anyone?
**********************
It’s pretty sad that Pats fans are reduced this type stuff. Apparently, somebody thins way more highly of himself than is reality.

What’s the plan, hold your breath, until Goodell folds? At least one Pats fan has entered the Twilight Zone.

“nsawins says:
May 10, 2015 2:41 PM
Goodell will dig his own grave if he suspends Brady. Period. He will lose in court and the NFL owners will finally realize this guy is a clown.”

Goodell won’t lose in court for one simple reason … Brady won’t take him there. Brady can’t afford to take him there. If Brady files a court case, there will be discovery, and subpoenas. He’ll have to turn over the phone. He can be deposed, and he can be forced to testify, under oath, and subject to penalty of perjury.

If Brady was willing to do any of that, he wouldn’t have obstructed the investigation.

Mike, thank you for your independent view. As much as it must pain you to report, you did the right thing. You are reporting the facts. The NFL is an organization that is full of hypocrisy, and you are the first to point it out.
Cheers!

for those who say that if you’re innocent, just hand over the phone, just think about how the lawyers interpreted the few texts and calls that were on the ball boys’ phones:

if brady is innocent, and the ball boys are innocent (since they certainly would not have messed with the balls without brady’s consent), then why do the lawyers interpret all the humor to be about real events (i.e., deflating the football after the referees check them) when there is no evidence that the real events occurred (since the gauges showed nothing of significance).

1. Privacy is the only reasonable presumption one should make about not giving up texts – those are Brady’s private possessions and no one has a right to.

2. Report failed to explain even if he had a general knowledge of deflation was it specific enough to know during the game that it was deflated to a level below regulation – who has not noticed a difference in inflation yet could accurately judge the difference?

I am not a Brady fan I am a Buckeye- but there is not enough here and we all know how the NFL operates

“Actually, this part I mostly agree with you. Rodgers said that he over inflates them and hopes to get them passed the refs. That implies that he knows they don’t really check, and if they do, well, they will just let a little air out to make it closer to the official allowed level. He certainly never said they do anything about the balls afterwords.”
——-
In his interview, he said that the refs always seemed to let some air out of the ball, regardless on what the level was. So they start out high to compensate for that fact.

I think he means to imply that to test the air pressure of the balls, you obviously have to remove some air during that process, so if you have it just above, it will end up at the top end of the range.

Brady did not obstruct the investigation… He sat and answered all questions for over 5 1/2 hrs… He drew the line on releasing his PERSONAL phone to them….his own personal property… What if they said they wanted to go to his home & search that as well?? Should have just handed them his keys?
You haters are clueless!!!
The Pats handed over the employees phones as they were provided by the team…they weren’t their personal phones!!!
If Brady sent them texts they’d be on the phones turned over… That’s how it works, messages sent have to be received!!! Duh!!

Apparently there weren’t enough billable hours available in exonerating Brady, so instead we get this – The Wells Report

Seriously, anyone with an engineering background is laughing out loud while reading this. There is absolutely no possible way that the NFL has any idea of whether or not the game balls being used are within spec IN ANY GAME, let alone the game in question. From the cheap, low-res, uncalibrated gauges they are using to the extremely lax testing protocols, they cannot possibly know that the pressure within the balls is being held within a relatively narrow 1psi window.

Ted Wells report proved absolutly nothing that can’t be challenged or debunked in some way so he used the” obstruction angle” to help self promote his lack of evidence in the eyes of the uninformed masses & the league that is PAYING him to come up with plausible cause to add intent where absolutly none was found or proven… That in itself is borderline unethical in it’s own right!!

Wow, you sound like you know a lot about this. Can you tell me which page in the Wells report states that the Patriots footballs were tampered with after referee inspection?
———————————–
Sure thing! Do a search and go to the page with the following excerpt.

“Jim McNally (the Officials Locker Room attendant for the Patriots) and John Jastremski (an equipment assistant for the Patriots) participated in a deliberate effort to release air from Patriots game balls after the balls were examined by the referee. Based on the evidence, it also is our view that it is more probable than not that Tom Brady (the quarterback for the Patriots) was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities of McNally and Jastremski involving the release of air from Patriots game balls.”

Why won’t Aaron Rodgers turn over his phone? Why is he obstructing the NFL investigation into his attempts to sneak non-conforming footballs past the refs? What is he hiding?

Sound ridiculous? It should. This is America. We don’t assume people are guilty, we assume they are innocent, and there must be proof to the contrary to find them guilty. Reading how an “independent investigator” cross-examined witnesses just to open up potential ambiguities in their story so he can draw adverse inferences contrary to what the witness was actually saying makes me want to throw up. No wonder Brady wouldn’t give this guy his phone or let him rummage around in his personal life, would you?

If this Soviet era show trial doesn’t get Goodell fired at long last, I don’t know what will. You woke the wrong dog.

It’s obviously NOT in the league’s best interest to frame Brady and the Pats, but that assumes that all people at the very top of the league have the league’s best interests in mind, instead of their own and that of their clan(s). Case in point, some people very close to the investigation already embarrassed the league with a number of leaks, that turned out to be false and entirely crafted to accuse the Patriots. Second, someone high in the organization created this mess in the clear hope of catching the Pats red-handed, instead of dealing with it via the conventional path of just warning the team, and made a mess of it because they had to do it surreptitiously, least the Pats hear about it. Finally, someone high in the league came up with the nonsense about Belichick’s ” profane tirade” at the owners’ meeting that was also just meant to embarrass him and the Pats. And that’s just the last 4 months.
To me this suggests that at the top of the NFL is a very small group of people whose hate for the Pats trumps everything else, including the league’s best interests. Also, that these people are utterly incompetent, and that Goodell has no control over them. time to clean house.

This is more and more feeling like a frame job from the very beginning, and Wells seems to have been directed to find incriminating evidence at any cost, even ignoring physics and the best recollection of a highly regarded ref. How can Goodell still claim that air was intentionally released from the balls when the Ideal Gas Law would put the balls in the exact range they were in? If Brady is suspended for refusing to give up his cell phone after being falsely accused and dragged through the mud, there is a huge problem.

And again all over something that is the equivalent of a low level speeding ticket if he’s even guilty. Think he may be, no way to know definitively, but this was never about the infraction and always about the accused.

This overblown, absurd “investigation” of a fabricated or irrelevant wrongdoing is becoming a thing that happens every offseason with this league. It was the Saints, then Incognito, then Brady. It will be someone else next year for some other ridiculous reason, along with another sham investigation and another propaganda campaign. The owners wanted a mindless puppet and they got one. Now, they have to be starting to reconsider.

Gotta love NE apologists. Jeez folks, the Deflator? And you continue to deny?

——

Yes, its undeniable those texts are damning. But what is confusing is that 4 Patriots balls were in expected range (if you count the intercepted ball which was tested page 70) even with the lower gauge. If you use the higher gauge then most of the balls were in the expected range.

Yep, all the incriminating deflator text messages are no longer a big deal. We’re all lemmings and let the media lead us. Florio and Yee are right…. in fact the NFL should apologize to the Patriots!

This makes me sick. Enough about a PSI controversy for ONE GAME of the 19 the Pats played and you all agreeing with Florio that it vindicates the Brady Bunch. Good god, think for yourself.

Read the texts: A superstar who thinks he is untouchable cheated. At the very minimum, 2 Patriots employees conspired to cheat. That’s on the organization. They should be punished severely, this isn’t about 1 game. It’s been going on for at least 1 entire season, probably many more.

See, here’s the thing. People can go around calling themselves anything they want, they can even going around saying they committed rules violations.

But you still have to prove that rules were violated. For whatever reason, whether to get attention or seem more important, or in McNally’s case apparently to get free shoes, people say they did things they didn’t actually do all the time.

I could walk into a police station and say I just committed a murder, but the cops still have to prove there was actually a murder committed. They can’t just say “well we have no body, no weapon, no proof that anyone was actually murdered, but this guy says he did it, so………”

As I said in an earlier post, any lawyer two weeks out of law school would rip those texts to shreds as evidence. McNally gives a perfect motive for lying by continually asking for free stuff and would make a terrible witness. And Brady’s texts to Jastremski could easily be played off as a friend asking another friend who is under tremendous scrutiny if they are OK.

This is why, even though I personally think it happened, I also think Brady is going to get off very lightly. The league has to know that their report will get obliterated in court so they will give him a light enough suspension that he won’t bother to sue.

So many “challenged”individuals keep going back to the “deflator” aspect….just take a deep breath & think just a little…
The term wasn’t used prior to the Jets game where the “deflator” got reamed out by Brady because the balls were 16 psi which somehow the refs approved for use…(but that’s a whole other issue in itself)… Brady told his guys he wants them to make sure they are at the legal lower limit from now on & to deflate them to that setting 12.5 psi…. So the guys who work together & probably joke about all kinds of issues (just like everyone else does at their work)came up with the term amongst themselves knowing what Brady wants… I mean they even joked about blowing them up to the size of beach balls… Terms/ nicknames/ comments & jokes can be taken in ANY context if the tone of the conversation is not known or understood… Almost ANYTHHING can be henpecked & twisted to fit an agenda to sway ones viewpoint to meet another’s….so Brady likes his Balls on the soft end of the spectrum… Do you think that after getting reamed by him they won’t accommodate his request?? He NEVER gave them a text saying make them illegal from all I read in the report… No malicious intent was ever proven or discovered….
& for the ref to say never in 19 years had he ever lost track of footballs before a game until that specific one where a sting operation was in place to try & catch some wrong doing & to not check them immediatly when found to verify any form of tampering took place is down right incompitant…. THAT would have been the time to gauge the balls for wrongdoing not after 30 + minutes in the cold & rain….
Face it… This entire fiasco was botched in the biggest way & there is absolutly nothing to contradict that….
NFL suto-sting is a disaster from top to bottom….& the proof if just not there that shows any for of intent…

Well then, guy called himself the Deflator so he must have cheated. Also, let’s investigate Sean “Shady” McCoy because he must have something to hide. And call animal control to take care of Lynch…. wait, maybe this one makes sense.

What is really scary after reading the conclusions some draw from these facts is this is the kind of irrational though people take into a jury room. Bias and prejudice rein supreme over facts. People, the Wells law firm did not search for the truth, they prosecuted Brady and twisted facts and words to support their client’s agenda. That is not unusual. What is unusual in our legal system is that the accused here has virtually no rights to cross examine, call witnesses, or affect the process. That problem is further exacerbated when the jackals in the media run with leaks from Wells and the NFL and accept that a biased report is “independent”. Imagine what it would be like for you to be in his shoes if even his wealth and power can not stop this travesty?

Now use the other half of your training. Write a brief on an NFLPA member’s rights and responsibilities when responding to an NFL investigation’s request for personal records. That would be very enlightening for many.

Pats made a mistake not letting McNally explain the deflator texts.
————–
Actually McNally did try to explain it to the Wells investigators & that it was a joke but Wells people said that they didn’t find that plausible & would not accept his explanation…that’s also in the report so Wells chose to put his own spin on it… No agenda there is there?

The Patriots and Belicheck have created a culture of cheating that is well documented. Tom Brady was a product of the culture and just did what he was groomed to do.
====
Document it. Go ahead. I’ll even spot you Spygate.

Goodell is the judge , jury, executioner, court and courthouse. And if wants to bury Brady under it that’s just what he will do.
===
No. He’s not. Someone like Brady can afford to access US District Court.

Brady’s game check is what… $1MM… $1.1MM per game? How much lawyer time do you think he can buy for that? How much do you think he’ll need to shred this joke a report. I said on Friday that it would come down to putting Walt Anderson on the stand and asking him which gauge he used. Once you do that, the Exponent study collapses. Once the Exponent study collapses, there’s no excess pressure loss to explain. Once there’s no excess pressure loss to explain, the Wells Report collapses because there’s no violation.

This is why, even though I personally think it happened, I also think Brady is going to get off very lightly. The league has to know that their report will get obliterated in court so they will give him a light enough suspension that he won’t bother to sue.
===
No regular season suspension is that light enough that he won’t sue, if he thinks he can win. Suspension means the loss of a game check. Let us assume that TB is suspended for one game. If Brady has to spend $500k on lawyers to sue, then he will, because he’ll regain ~$1MM in lost pay if he wins.

I’m not a Patriots hater. I’m not even threatened by them, my boys took the foot of the gas when we could have rolled them by 3 scores last year. I was happy to see them beat the Seahawks — almost ecstatic.

But to compare Rodgers overinflating balls before the officials check them to Tom’s scheming underlings to deflate them them post-check is silly. The big difference? Rodgers didn’t have guys temporarily steal checked game balls and pump them back up.

Last point: All of you guys making legal references “any lawyer who has been a lawyer for two weeks knows this….” is really irritating. I’m glad you’re a younger guy who took the debt plunge that I did 7 years ago. But everything you’ve learned in law school, civ pro, FRE, etc. doesn’t apply here. It’s a private employment dispute resolved through its own internal channels. Go impress some broads at the bar with your brilliant legal mind. It doesn’t apply here.

Why does everyone think Brady is obligated or should turn in his cell phone? Most people probably have incriminating or personal stuff on their phones. No other employer, except maybe high level govt employess would be asked to turn over their cell phones. I know if my employer saw some of the texts or pictures on my phone I would be fired immediately.

I have no specific interest in which way this goes, either way. If the Pats and Brady tampered with the footballs then punish them.

However, from day one this has had the appearance of a witch hunt (you can’t tell me that all the negative leaks from the NFL front office regarding the Pats in the first couple of weeks weren’t intended to distract them before the SB) and the Wells report is been far too selective with what it chooses to use to support its conclusion vs. disregard – with poor explanations for what it disregards and why.

I think this key piece of evidence clearly shows the bias in the report and that they were looking for a specific outcome from the start. Hell, the report itself says that they have no clear evidence of tampering but the conclusion decides that there was, anyway.

“More probable than not” is a conclusion, I guess, that lawyers can just throw out there when they feel like it?

Why should Brady let anyone see his text messages? I wouldn’t let anyone see mine. He may have private information on his texts and someone could leak personal information to the public.
Go ahead and suspend him, give Garrapolo some playing time, it will make them better in the long run. All of you that want him suspended aren’t real football fans your just jealous losers! You should want to watch one of the best to ever play the game. Admire him ands stop making excuses for why the team you root for isn’t as successful as the Patriots. Maybe you might learn something about the game.

You know…I keep hearing everyone demanding TB12 turn over his texts as proof. Let me just ask this. With the amount of inflammatory leaks and the way that everything has been handled as an attack on the pats, who would if they were in the same situation??!!??

Everything has been handled very unprofessionally. Do you think that TB12 may not want personal texts to his wife or containing his opinions pertaining subjects that might not be a part of this investigation shared with the world? Would you trust the process when it has been mishandled so much already as of this point? I know I would not. Sad that everyone wants to throw him to the wolves with no proof. Wonder what they would think if it was them…

Grasping at ANYTHING to avoid the conclusion based on the facts that Brady was involved in cheating. Text messages between conspirators one of which was called “The Deflator”, the phone calls after it broke with Brady (none before) the invitation to Brady’s office (none before) the autographed memorabilia and sneaker gifts (none reported before) Brady’s refusal to cooperate in the investigation including surrendering his text messages + the average PSI between both gauges still below regulation = GUILT. Yeah, it had no effect on that 1 game, but it wasn’t the first time they tampered with the balls and who’s to say it didn’t help them in the past win a close game that potentially lead to home field advantage/playoff berth/position? If it didn’t help, why risk it? Stats show the Pats are TWICE as good as the next closest team at not fumbling. Why? Their footballs are easier to hold on to. They cheated. Case closed. Now lets penalize them (something significant) and move on.

Out of a 239 page report the BEST Pat fan can find to help their cause to exonerate their beloved Tom Brady is a ref’s “recollection” over what air pressure gauge was used to test the balls at half time. That’s it? What happened to that BS weather excuse the coach gave (because you know the weather was different on their side of the field). Anyone with a non-biased opinion would say, hey these guys aren’t being transparent here.

Let’s face it, the NFL is a league of cheating criminals and the Pats victory last season proves that cheating is standard operating procedure. I’m sick of watching a bunch of over-muscled apes cheating so am quitting watching the NFL! When cheaters win the game loses.

Doesn’t matter which gauge he used, the balls were tampered with AFTER they were checked by the officials on Brady’s orders. That’s been proven by text messages among the conspirators. So in or out of limits becomes a non-issue.

They didn’t disregard it. They concluded he was wrong based on the ideal gas law.

If you compare the pre-game and post game levels of the Pats and Colts balls using EITHER device it is clear the pats balls deflated far more.

But based on what they estimated the pressure loss ought to have been, they concluded which gauge must have been used before using the Colts balls as a control.

If you are going to say that the higher gauge was used before the game, you still need Anderson to have set the levels to something other than his recollection (or someone to have heated/inflated the colts balls) to arrive at the conclusion the Pats didn’t cheat.

Everyone wants the Patriots/Brady to be guilty… The League… Wells… Colts… Ravens … Jets… Kinsel… and this witch hunt … started out with … “yea we’ll investigate and then we’ll hang em”. Make the facts support our jumped to conclusion…

Simply disgraceful…

Goodell sucks… He needs to be fired. I can’t help but wonder how Tags would have handled this… I doubt it would have gotten this far out of hand… and it certainly wouldn’t have taken three months to come up with “more probable than not”

“This whole investigation is a joke…And the NFL has come out looking even worse.”

You can eliminate that from the report and there is still an abundance of evidence that confirms that they are guilty. Regardless which device was used, the were still underinflated. It’s just a matter of by how much.

Patriots fans still think that SPYGATE proved nothing and there was no evidence of cheating!

That’s how dense they are.
———————————————
My guess is this guy has no idea what spygate even was? Honestly not many do.

The Patriots were punished for FILMING their 2007 regular season game against the Jets from a SIDELINE LOCATION INSTEAD OF of from an APPROVED LOCATION (e.g. a press or media box).

They were NOT punished for filming the Jets defensive signals, as that has never been forbidden by the NFL. As of 2006, however, WHERE YOU FILM the game and signals is limited to approved locations. Coincidentally, the Jets had done nearly the exact same thing a year earlier but were not punished, even a little bit, by NFL commissioner and former Jets public relations intern Roger Goodell.

Why were the penalties so high? Because of the leaguewide pervasiveness of the filming practice, a memo was sent out to all NFL teams in 2006 telling them not to record opposing sidelines from certain areas, and it was reiterated in 2007. Belichick’s staff petulantly recorded from these spots anyway which really pissed-off the new commissioner.

The only way the NFL saves face is if Rogers comes to the podium and states:

1. Walter Anderson is suspended for 2 games for failing to maintain control of the footballs and not verifying that the footballs where within league rules prior to kick-off.

2. Kinsell and every other NFL official is suspended for 2 games for allowing the integrity of the game to be violated when told before hand of issues by the Colts. A clear dereliction of duty.

3. The Patriots are fined 250K not for ownership or coaches fault but rather for violation of League Rules by low level employees.

4. It is more probable then not that while Tom Brady is generally aware of league rules of PSI in a football there is nothing in the report that shows in any detail that he told McNally to deflate footballs after they were inspected by league officials. Thus no punishment.

5. The NFL is currently reviewing our pre game policies and procedures for inspection of footballs and will be developing new procedures.

I think Florio is correct. The outcome of this ‘investigation’ was as predetermined as a WWE match. Where was the outcry for San Diego’s stickum on the ball two seasons ago or Minnesota / Carolina heating up the ball?

I know you have to take the incident for what it is but as Peter King brought up Brady’s road stats this morning are just as good and in some cases better than his home stats (Jets over inflated the patriots footballs when they played at the meadowlands).

Fine them and move the F on. If this was 1985 nobody would care. But with social media and 24/7 talking heads you would think ISIS has there hand in this.

Not entirely true. The memo in 2007 was to discourage video taping signals that is why they allowed video taping in only certain locations where you couldn’t video tape the signals. Belicheat knew this and did it anyway and them claimed he misinterpreted the memo.

It’s 2015…. Why waste you time even discussing the filming issue of 2007….now air pressure is the latest craze… At least keep it current
I love reading how it’s changed the game of football forever & the Pats couldn’t have won a game without a ball that reads 11.5 psi as opposed to 12.5 psi… I mean isn’t that what footballs really about??
If this whole thing wasn’t so sad it would be comical…
I’ve really lost any hope for our countries future based on the level of mentally challenged that I’ve seen posting on here…

They didn’t disregard it. They concluded he was wrong based on the ideal gas law.

If you compare the pre-game and post game levels of the Pats and Colts balls using EITHER device it is clear the pats balls deflated far more.

But based on what they estimated the pressure loss ought to have been, they concluded which gauge must have been used before using the Colts balls as a control.

If you are going to say that the higher gauge was used before the game, you still need Anderson to have set the levels to something other than his recollection (or someone to have heated/inflated the colts balls) to arrive at the conclusion the Pats didn’t cheat.

First of all, there is no record of a pre-game measurement of the footballs, just some confused recollection of what they might have been. There has also been no evidence provided that the Colts footballs were inflated to the same level as the Patriots footballs, so if the Colts footballs started at a higher PSI, they would obviously recorded higher at halftime.

Secondly, there were no end game measurements needed, because the refs allegedly re-inflated the footballs to the correct pressure at halftime.

Out of a 239 page report the BEST Pat fan can find to help their cause to exonerate their beloved Tom Brady is a ref’s “recollection” over what air pressure gauge was used to test the balls at half time. That’s it? What happened to that BS weather excuse the coach gave (because you know the weather was different on their side of the field). Anyone with a non-biased opinion would say, hey these guys aren’t being transparent here.
===

If you trust the ref’s recollection, the weather excuse is all you need to explain the pressure loss. The balls lost pressure. No one doubts that. The only question is, and always was, “Was the pressure loss abnormally high given the conditions?”

If you trust Walt Anderson’s recollection of which gauge he used, the answer to that question is, “No. The pressure loss is entirely explained by natural law.”

Or, you know, a person with nothing to hide.
_____________________
If my boss asked to see my personal text messages and emails, I would say no. He doesn’t have a right to them. I pay for my phone, it’s not a company phone.

But even more importantly, Tom Brady is a representative member of the NFLPA. Do you really think that the NFL wouldn’t love to get their hands on any communication between Brady and the NFLPA? I don’t blame him for not turning over his phone.

Besides, if any of these text messages between the equipment guys and Brady existed, don’t you think they would have been forensically recovered from the equipment guy’s phones that they did get their hands on?

They are going to suspend Brady for something that was so important that they allowed underinflated balls (or so they thought or is probable) on the filed for the first half.

I hope the police in my town do not let crimes be committed so that they can level more charges on the criminal instead of stopping it in process.

Measure before the game.
Record the numbers.
Inflate to the correct number.
Play Game
Do investigation in one month.

Then have your investigation, removes all kinds of guess work(ideal gas law etc). Of course a single calibrated gage or set would be nice but that would be professional and the league has some issues with that and investigations.

While the Wells Report asks us not to believe Tom Brady’s limited published testimony, because Ted Wells doesn’t believe him. We are then asked to believe that Walt Anderson personally checked all 24 balls prior to kickoff, and remember exactly how much air was in each one, and if they were all measured from the same gauge or not.

Any Science 101 class will tell you that your data must be complete in order to come to a definitive conclusion. We don’t know what gauges were used to measure the balls before the game. We don’t know if or when these gauges were ever calibrated and what the margin of error is for them. Only 4 Colts balls were tested at halftime. It is also impossible to replicate the same exact conditions that existed on game day.

The NFLPA would be very upset if Tom Brady gave up his phone. It would set a precedent for future inquiries by the league, and that is the same reason Stephen Gostkowski didn’t turn his phone over. The union doesn’t want players to concede anything without advice of counsel.

“The NFLPA would be very upset if Tom Brady gave up his phone. It would set a precedent for future inquiries by the league, and that is the same reason Stephen Gostkowski didn’t turn his phone over. The union doesn’t want players to concede anything without advice of counsel.”

————————

Agreed. The onus is on the NFL to make a determination based on the facts they have. If they don’t have enough evidence without Brady’s personal mobile phone, then they need to let it go. This isn’t a criminal case, so remember folks – we’re only talking about a football game here, not real life. In a nutshell, the NFL really doesn’t have any right to ask for Brady’s personal phone.

You say “if that gauge were used to set the PSI for the balls before the game began…” and base your conclusions on that premise.

Bad premise.

Both gauges in question belonged to Walt Anderson. They were not the “NFL’s” gauges, and they were not the Patriot’s gauges.

Before the game, the balls were inflated by the Patriots, not Walt Anderson. Anderson only checked the pressure before the game — he did not inflate. Moe (Jastremski) sets the pressure pre-game. Anderson checked the pressure. They were fine. Then Larry (McNally) transports the balls, stopping for some reason in a bathroom on the way. Then during the game it’s discovered that the balls are underinflated with the same gauge(s) that were used to check (NOT inflate) the balls before the game.

And all but one halftime measurement is at least 1lb (not 0.3 to 0.45) lower than the pre-game measurements using the same gauge(s).

I just wanna know what reason the equipment manager would have to take the balls into the bathroom other than to tamper with them – can any Pats fan answer that objectively?
_____________________
He had to pee?

What I would like the league to answer is that if 100 seconds is enough time to strategically deflate 12 footballs as they claim, why is it that they reported they didn’t have enough time to test all of the footballs at half time? Half time is 20+ minutes. So 100 seconds is enough time to deflate 12 footballs without deflating them too much, but 20 minutes isn’t enough time to test 24 footballs?

Tom’s cell phone tells the whole story. That’s why he’s obstructing the process. Cooperation is something Tom should do but he knows that proves his guilt even more. Head coach started a cheating culture and now their star player has done it too.

————————————————————

What crap.

Anything suspicious on Brady’s phone would have showed up on McNally and Jastremski’s phone, which the league already haves.

To deflate a ball only requires inserting the needle for a few seconds each. That takes no time. On the other hand, testing each ball with 2 different gauges and carefully recording the measurements takes more time.

They tested all the balls they had in the Referee’s locker room at halftime. This included the 11 remaining Pats balls and 4 Colts balls that had been selected. They didn’t run out of time.

joebird1:
This included the 11 remaining Pats balls and 4 Colts balls that had been selected. They didn’t run out of time.
______________________________
Yes, they did.

Taken directly from page 68 of the report:
Blakeman and Prioleau also tested four Colts game balls. Riveron, Vincent and others explained that only a sample of the Colts balls were tested because of time constraints.

And all but one halftime measurement is at least 1lb (not 0.3 to 0.45) lower than the pre-game measurements using the same gauge(s).

Explain that.
===
The entire point of Florio’s article is that it’s more likely than not that WA DIDN’T use the properly calibrated gauge. A 1 PSI drop would be expected (and was experimentally confirmed) in cold footballs.

The referee does not inflate the balls. The teams do. And the teams would not have used either of Anderson’s gauge’s in the process. They were in his locker.
===
The referee does inflate the balls (or let air out) if the balls are out of spec.

If NEP’s balls were delivered to WA low (around 12.1 to 12.2 PSI), WA’s miscalibrated gauge would have read them as 12.5 PSI. We know that several NE balls were actually delivered low regardless of gauge and WA did actually inflate them.

All this BS on a non-issue and no problems with paying Goodell more than any player. Next year the rule shifts and the NFL provides all game footballs and the refs hand them to ball boys 2 minutes from game start. End of issue.

I may be misinterpreting or misunderstanding the article, but as long as both sets of footballs were measured with the same air pressure gauge prior to the start of the game, than the article regarding Walt Anderson’s recall of which air pressure gauge was used prior to the start of the game is irrelevant.

A person (named Walt) measures the air pressure (PSI) in each bouncy ball prior to taking all six balls out doors into the cold weather. Walt has two air pressure gauges (gauge #1 and gauge #2), but Walt forgets whether he used gauge #1 or gauge #2 when measuring the air pressure of the balls before taking the balls outside.

Pat’s balls should lose approximately the same amount in air pressure (PSI) since all six balls were taken outside for 2 hours. In this example, Pat’s balls should lose roughly 1.00 – 0.65 PSI (just as Colt’s balls did).

Regardless of which air pressure gauge was used to make the initial measurements, the question that NOW needs to be addressed and answered now is.

“Why did each of Pat’s balls lose more air than each of Colt’s balls?”

(did Colt add air into his balls? Did Pat take away air from his balls? Did Colt place his balls in front of a heater? Etc. etc. etc.)

The conclusions (based on Exponent’s statistical analysis and experiments) on page 114-115 of the report state the following:

There was an apparent difference in the reduction of average air pressure between the Patriots and Colts game balls when measured at halftime. When compared to the reported pre-game pressures of 12.5 psi and 13.0 psi, the average pressure drop of the Patriots game balls exceeded the average pressure drop of the Colts balls by 0.45 to 1.02 psi. The difference in the average pressure drops between the Patriots and Colts footballs is statistically significant REGARDLESS OF WHICH OF THE TWO GAUGES WAS USED TO MEASURE THE GAME BALLS PRIOR TO THE GAME AND AT HALFTIME.

The additional reduction in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls was unlikely to have occurred by chance.

*** There is only a 0.4% likelihood-a fraction of one percent-that the difference in average pressure drops between the teams occurred by chance. ***

The most plausible explanation for the variability of the Patriots halftime measurements is that the eleven footballs measured by the officials at halftime did not all start the game at or near the same pressure, even though they all measured at or near 12.5 psi when inspected by the referee prior to the game.

Im a Pats fan. Did he do it? “More probable than not” I think he did. should he be punished? Yes. A 2 games Suspension is fine. (We’ll go 1-1 at worst) then he’ll return and go 12-2 down stretch (At worse). As Pats fan Im angry because there is no need for him to do so. We all know how good this team is, so why? Why do it?
Whats bugging me are the ones talking 8 games, 16 games. suspend Bellichik (exonerated). Sour grapes from fans. Colts fans who say “We wouldve won” Umm 45-7 Pats couldve used a bar of soap and won that game. Lets all hope they decided soon so we can talk about other things.

“I may be misinterpreting or misunderstanding the article, but as long as both sets of footballs were measured with the same air pressure gauge prior to the start of the game, than the article regarding Walt Anderson’s recall of which air pressure gauge was used prior to the start of the game is irrelevant.”

I think you are off. When I first crunched the numbers, I assumed the Patriots balls were off more than the Colts but not by much. Four were about the same as the Colts balls. Six were up to a .5 psi lower and one significantly lower. I assumed – because of the Patriots own meticulousness, that the balls were according to the lower range but I have no real basis for that. If the higher gauge were used, the balls would be in the same range.

I also have no knowledge of what usage does to psi. The Patriots balls got used a lot more. And they ran it more meaning more big bodies on top. I don’t know the effect but it should be investigated as a factor.

The “no evidence” line is wrong. The two ball boys were obviously deflating the balls, I don’t think anyway can argue against that even despite Tom Brady’s concealing of evidence. As far as the mathematics of footballs losing air is concerned, that’s the type of thing that conspiracy theorists get bogged down in, just like the threshold that jet fuel can melt steel beams at (for 9/11 conspiracy theorists) or the trajectory of bullets (JFK). Please. We all know what happened. Everyone who’s not from Boston, including people like John Madden have come out and said balls aren’t going to get deflated without the QB’s knowledge. It’s painfully obvious.

Don Yee, Patriot’s fans, and Robert Kraft are far more the ones with an agenda than the NFL or Wells. The NFL / Wells, according to you all, are conspiring against the Patriots.

Stop and think about that for a minute. Forget you are a Patties fan and just think about what you’re positing. Do you understand how ridiculous it is? Is it so hard to believe that the self-proclaimed “Deflator” was deflating footballs, and that he’d have no reason to do so (as everyone has mentioned) without the QB’s go ahead? And further that Brady is on record as preferring deflated footballs and refused to cooperate? The rest of it is just formalities… those facts alone say everything. I’m not even going to wade into the stupid “Ideal Gas Law” debate with people who have too much spare time.

So even though the recorded PSI with the “recollected” gauge showed no deflation, Wells is just going to assume

#1. They were deflated and

#2. Brady ordered the illegal tampering that didn’t take place

And why is it that everyone assumes Brady told equipment people to cheat?

Isn’t it just as plausible that he simply let it be known that he wants his footballs at the minimum? There’s no reason to “cheat” if the officials simply do that

Of course we know from the Wells report that the officials DO cheat and pump balls WAY BEYOND the allowable range to 16 PSI (and my guess is that the role of the “deflator” is to stop officials from cheating like that

Goodell has risen to the status of dictator. He is certainly compensated like one.
His minion, Ted Wells, is defiant of the malicious statements made to denigrate him for his half-assed report and obviously flawed findings.
Who in the hell is Ted Wells? Did he bask in the glory of taking forever in turning over his findings or did he decide to let the meter run as cost was not object?
Nice work if you can get it!
Wells does not have the status of a Brady, Gronkowski or Robert Kraft by anyone’s measure.
If you had a super model wife, would you even let your agent leer at any photos that “may or may not” be on your phone? Hell no!
This fiasco has run it’s course. Goodell will be history as he has tried to cover his ineptitude in the Ray Rice matter by sacrificing his “Dutch Uncle” Robert Kraft.
What goes around – comes around!

asl3676: “One can poke holes in any “report”. This is not a criminal investigation…It’s a question of Brady’s and the Pats credibility and their credibility is a problem for the NFL…”
___________________________________
When the dust clears, this will be seen, by those of us without axes to grind, to be yet another indictment of the credibility of Roger and Co., which is the NFL’s real problem, for going on at least five years now. The man never fails to find the cow patties when he lays down his wingtips.

The smoking gauge:
Forget the logos.How can anybody forget whether the needle was bent or not? Best guess is he tested with the low reading gauge meaning that the balls were possibly higher than tested for. All McNally did was correct the error. That is they were all set to 12.5 by Tom’s gauge.This would also bring the Colt’s balls closer to the ideal gas law predictions. My guess is Walt knew and Mr. Wells is lying. Please release Anderson’s transcript. If Anderson tested with the higher measuring gauge they were all possibly lower than tested (Pat’s balls underinflated from the getgo).
Why didn’t Wells rig a manometer and test each gauge to verify the deviation of each from the true pressure when the manometer was set at 13.00 psi? Did he really need exponent or did he need a smokescreen? Kraft’s professor should turn in his Nobel since he ignored the “damning” conclusion that the differential pressure drop of the Colts’ balls was about half that of the Pats’ balls.
The smoking gauge in this mess is Brady’s (McNally’s gauge). They are still out there and simple manometer test will show the deviation of all three gauges from the true pressure provided by the manometer set at 13.00 psi.
Please note, Brady did nothing but demand balls inflated at 12.5 psi (not underinflated). It was McNally’s job to do so. At no time were the balls underinflated except if Anderson messed up (using a gauge that read higher then the true pressure).
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.